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Wal-Mart Tests Online Grocery Delivery

Posted by Soulskill on from the bring-me-a-shrubbery dept.

fysdt writes "The world's biggest retailer had been rumored to be considering dipping its toe into online grocery delivery for the past few years. The 'Walmart To Go' test allows customers to visit Walmart.com to order groceries and consumables found in a Walmart store and have them delivered to their homes, the spokesman said. Products include fresh produce, meat and seafood, frozen, bakery, baby, over-the-counter pharmacy, household supplies and health and beauty items."

18 of 229 comments (clear)

  1. Asda have been doing this for years by Gordonjcp · · Score: 3, Informative

    ... and of course Asda is the UK version of Walmart.

    Has anyone actually set foot inside an Asda store in the past couple of years? I'm never sure if the big anonymous boxes are actually supermarkets, or just a delivery depot.

  2. Asda In the UK by Fnagaton · · Score: 3, Informative

    UK store Asda, while owned by Wal-Mart, had been using online shopping for years.

    --
    Martin Piper
    Owner - ReplicaNet and RNLobby
  3. Re:I object to delivery charges... by Ron+Bennett · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Two major reasons for supermarkets charging a fee ...

    1. The profit margin is presumably far lower than a food place.

    2. The delivery people likely are regular hourly paid employees and aren't expected to be tipped; use company vehicles instead of their own.

    Ron

  4. Re:Not news... at least not in the UK... by queazocotal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Indeed - I can order online from any of three supermarkets - Asda, Tesco, Sainsburys,

    At the moment, I'm unable to drive, as health problems are making it difficult for me
    to get my licence. This also means I'm on a severe budget.

    Online delivery means I don't have to drag a couple of bags home on the bus every
    day or three - it's great!

    It also means that with the aid of my freezer, I can eat really quite cheaply indeed.
    I base my orders around buy-one-get-one-free, or half-price offers, and am at the
    moment shopping around monthly.

    One of them even has an online API! http://www.techfortesco.com/forum/index.php?board=1.0

    Being able to complete an order at leisure, and to reflect on each purchases value and
    calories/... has greatly trimmed my grocery bill and waistline.

    I'm in a small village - 6 miles from the nearest town of 40K - no 'fast food' places will deliver.

  5. Chicks to go: by Hartree · · Score: 4, Funny

    Will that be Jersey Giant, Rhode Island Red, or Leghorn?

    Oh, and we tried fitting Barbie doll shorts, but they don't fit that well.

  6. Pretty Good by jewelises · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When I moved out of my mother's basement I used the Albertson's delivery service until they shut it down. It was $14 per delivery, regardless of size, so I'd get all of my groceries for the month in one order.

    It was a lot easier to avoid impulse buying and to plan out what was actually needed when I could place the order online. Albertson's would remember your previous order so it was easy to just adjust it slightly each month.

  7. Has been working fine... by wimg · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Has been working fine in Belgium for about 10 years or so. Several of the major stores offer this service for a small fee.

  8. Re:Why Walmart and not WholeFoods or Trader Joes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Walmart is not known for having quality food. Why is it so difficult to find a delivery service for quality food but so easy to find a delivery service from Stop and Shop or Walmart?

    Trader Joe's would rather you come into the store. The food itself is only part of the experience shopping there, the demo program, employees that actually talk to you, and the generous return policy are some of the things that make Trader Joe's unique.

    Disclaimer: I have worked there for 5 years, 3 in a management position, multiple stores. I can't speak for Whole Foods, but I would imagine they would also want customers to come into the store instead of just "getting the food".

  9. Re:I object to delivery charges... by hedwards · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Indeed. Albertson's has an interesting idea going, they've got basically three tiers of service, do it yourself, pickup and delivery. You pay a bit to have the groceries waiting for you when you stop by, but the cost of it can be a deal if you're in a situation of having to pay for daycare for an additional hour.

  10. Re:what? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Funny

    Just drop http://peopleofwalmart.com/?feed=rss2 into your RSS client of choice and get the ambiance delivered online!

  11. 1999 called by Spy+Handler · · Score: 3, Funny

    they want their Webvan.com back

  12. They are late to the party, but... by Hahnsoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    While Walmart is certainly late to the party on this one, the business implications are pretty big. They are already the world's largest retailer. They are already known for pushing out local businesses (which may be a good or bad thing depending on which point of view you are seeing). Delivery is one of the few ways that grocery stores have set themselves apart from Walmart. Is this a way for Walmart to strike out at their competition? Are they going to try to cut into competitors like Safeway and Albertson's who offer grocery delivery? My other slightly off-topic question is: why aren't there any fast food hamburger delivery chains? You can't throw a rock without hitting a pizza delivery place (or Chinese or Indian food), but there aren't any well-known burger joints that deliver (at least, not throughout the US in all locations).

    1. Re:They are late to the party, but... by proxima · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My other slightly off-topic question is: why aren't there any fast food hamburger delivery chains?

      A food's ability to be delivered depends a lot on how well it handles a 30 minute wait. Pizza is okay luke warm, cold, or re-heated. Chinese isn't so great cold, but you can insulate it pretty well and keep it warm enough for arrival, same with Indian food (both reheat okay). Cold sandwiches/subs deliver fine too.

      A burger, on the other hand, gets soggy, cold, and disgusting by the 30 minute mark. Fries are similar. These days most fast food places have pretty fast turnover of their fries, and within about 15 minutes of them being left out they're a pale imitation of how good they taste when you first get them. Tex-Mex is similar - tacos get soggy, so much that Taco Bell tastes much worse if you get it in the drive through and drive 10 minutes home with it.

      On the other hand, fried chicken products tend to do okay with the wait time. So while we don't see very many chicken-only delivery places, the major pizza chains often add chicken wings to their delivery options.

      --
      "The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
    2. Re:They are late to the party, but... by jkmartin · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No no NO! Walmart is good at 1 thing - selling very large volumes of low to medium quality merchandise in store. When they have tried to move away from this model they have failed - repeatedly and spectacularly. The most recent example came with a redesign of stores and elimination of some merchandise to give a more Target-ish feel. EVERYONE involved in that decision has been terminated and sales dropped by nearly $2 billion. Remember Walmart's competitor to Netflix? No one else does either. Did you know Walmart sells downloadable music? It's cheaper than iTunes and you never hear about it. Walmart went big in electronics and is now reducing that department's square footage by 2000 in each store.

      Walmart's profit on sales is very low - something like 3.5% across all merchandise. Grocery items have even smaller profit margins. For this to have even a slight chance of success the delivery fee will need to be tiny as the average Walmart customer is just that cost conscious. That tiny fee could easily be eaten up given even the smallest change in gas prices. I buy nearly all my groceries at Walmart. Given the choice of a $10 delivery fee and actually going to the store I will go to the store every single time.

      I live near Walmart's home office, and I have to tell you, Walmart is scared. They are entering unfamiliar territory and they do not know what to do. Other than a few isolated urban pockets, there is no where left for Walmart to expand. You can go to the middle of Alaska and there is a Walmart there. Walmart's years of explosive growth have ended. The stock price has barely budged over the last 10 years. While sales increase, the profit on those sales is decreasing. Something Walmart is trying to pilot here are stores in small towns (pop. 2500) that compete with dollar stores (Family Dollar, Dollar General). This not only breaks their distribution model (large trucks over large roads to large stores) but will drain sales from their existing large stores. Those smaller stores in smaller markets will have even smaller profit margins. Walmart isn't chasing pennies any longer, they are chasing hundredths of cents. Walmart is not innovating they are copying. This grocery delivery trial is just the latest attempt by Walmart of trying something (anything) to reverse what is in all likelihood a slow but inevitable death. Walmart isn't going away anytime soon, but they are going away.

  13. Re:Yawn, it's taken them long enough... by nedlohs · · Score: 3, Informative

    But they aren't Walmart

    Peapod has been doing groceries over the internet in the US for over 20 years, but they also aren't Walmart.

  14. Re:well free delivery you need to tip to pay the c by ydrol · · Score: 3, Informative

    GP like me, is British. We dont tip if we can help it :)

    Only people I tip,
    - barber shop,
    - mechanic (to make them less likely to rip me off), and
    - restaurant if there is no service charge.(cash direct to serving staff - no Credit Card tip)

  15. Amazon has been doing that for a while by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Informative

    Amazon, of all companies, has been doing that for a while in Seattle.

  16. Re:Yawn, it's taken them long enough... by Patch86 · · Score: 3, Informative

    ASDA has been doing home delivery in the UK for ages- and they ARE Walmart.

    So have all the other big grocers, incidentally. This seems like non news.