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Walmart Unveils 'Store No. 8' Tech Incubator In Silicon Valley (bloomberg.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the think-outside-the-box dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is creating a technology-startup incubator in Silicon Valley to identify changes that will reshape the retail experience, including virtual reality, autonomous vehicle and drone delivery and personalized shopping. The incubator will be called Store No. 8, a reference to a Wal-Mart location where the company experimented with new store layouts. Marc Lore, chief executive officer of Wal-Mart's e-commerce operations, announced the incubator Monday at the ShopTalk conference in Las Vegas. The world's biggest retailer has been overhauling its online team to better challenge Amazon.com Inc. with greater selection and lower prices. Lore founded Jet.com, which Wal-Mart purchased in September for about $3.3 billion in pursuit of Amazon in the e-commerce race. Lore said Wal-Mart has an advantage over "pure play" e-commerce companies because of its large network of stores that attract shoppers for such items as fresh food. The incubator will partner with startups, venture capitalists and academics to promote innovation in robotics, virtual and augmented reality, machine learning and artificial intelligence, according to Wal-Mart. The goal is to have a fast-moving, separate entity to identify emerging technologies that can be developed and used across Wal-Mart.

8 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Walmart is a tech leader ... by perpenso · · Score: 4, Informative

    Before you laugh, some history ... Walmart is/was a tech leader, they pioneered digitizing and automating the supply chain (orders, payments, etc) and inventory management (what, where, etc) back in the 1970s. They were also mining "big data" back then (more what and where - hurricane warning in gulf, move pop tarts from midwest distribution centers to gulf stores). Opening their "big data" is how they got suppliers to buy into their digital supply chain. Suppliers got to see their product sale at national, regional and even store levels with 15min granularity. All the cash registers reported to a store's minicomputer which then connected by satellite to headquarters to report sales.

    1. Re:Walmart is a tech leader ... by lucm · · Score: 2

      You must hold Walmart stock to peddle that line.

      Tough to lead in the technology sector with second tier and lower recruits.

      There's a revolving door between Walmart and Amazon. Top tier IT goes from here to there, because they're basically the only retailers with so much volume that they have challenges nobody else has. Granted, the lower rungs on the ladder are mostly visa workers (Walmart is the biggest recruiter of visa workers year after year) because there's no point in paying a premium for people who install MS-Office, but where it matters, it's top talent.

      I for one would love to work on IT projects at Walmart. Can you imagine the engineering challenges? We're not talking about digital goods, but real things with a real volume and weight that require space for storage and energy for shipping. Tons and tons of random crap, from batteries to lawn furniture and pepperoni. Fascinating.

      --
      lucm, indeed.
  2. Re:Can they innovate into not being Walmart? by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 2

    Me, I like the low prices.

    If you want to spend your extra dollar, maybe give it to a charity?

  3. "We" are forcing quality down ... by perpenso · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... force quality down in the name of price ...

    Technically that is we the consumers that are doing that. Offshoring, low quality, etc ... those are not CEO choices, those are consumer choices. When presented with two products, one domestically produced, higher quality and higher priced, and the other produced overseas, lower quality and lower priced, we the consumer overwhelmingly choose the lower priced. We reward the supplier that offshores and reduces quality. If we consumers showed a preference for local goods and/or higher quality goods that is what Walmart would stock the shelves with. They stock what sells, we decide what sells.

    1. Re: "We" are forcing quality down ... by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 2

      If consumers wanted to demonstrate a preference for local products they have options. Such a trend would be recognized. That is why you find various "greener" products at the grocery store nowadays, consumers started voting with their dollars and stores responded.

      By this, are you referring to organic produce? And by greener, are you referring to environmentalism?

      If so, you're basically being sold the scam of the century, and being suckered hook, line, and sinker. And in fact, stores like whole foods, which have picked up popularity as of late, are the grocery store scam of the century. The first giveaway should be the fact that they sell homeopathic medicine, but if you look at their ban list, it's basically nonsensical. For example, they ban monosodium-glutamate while allowing monopotassium-glutamate (contrary to popular belief, MSG is harmless at worst, and beneficial at best.) That store also sells a ton of junk food advertised as being healthy (i.e. blue sky sodas...it's natural, so it's good for you! Nevermind that it's loaded with sugar, cuz it's REAL sugar! And nevermind that cane sugar is no better or worse than HFCS.)

      You know what though? Walmart refuses to sell raw organic alfalfa sprouts due to their well known high risk for foodborn illness (and yes, many people have died from eating these when bought elsewhere,) meanwhile whole foods will happily sell them to you. But remember kids, MSG is bad even though nobody has ever gotten sick from it, and organic raw alfalfa sprouts are good because they're natural, and natural is always good for you. https://psychcentral.com/lib/t...

      Anyways I'm sure that somebody who disagrees with me is going to post a response that includes links from any one of naturalnews.com, mercola.com, foodbabe.com, foodrenegade.com, Dr. Oz, or some other well known quack source, but please don't bother because I consider clicking these kinds of links a total waste of time.

  4. The real story ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 2

    ... is that Amazon won.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  5. Re:Can they innovate into not being Walmart? by lucm · · Score: 2

    Ok let's say you buy a pair of jeans. Levis "Signature" is $17 at Walmart, cheapest Levis at JC Penney is $46 (I checked). So you can get through 3 pairs of Walmart jeans before you get to the JC Penney price. And while the Walmart ones are lower quality, they're still jeans, they do the job.

    And when it's time to buy more, the price at Walmart will have gone down to $15.75 or something like that while it will be like $53 at JC Penney.

    --
    lucm, indeed.
  6. Re:Can they innovate into not being Walmart? by ArmoredDragon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Me, I like the low prices.

    If you want to spend your extra dollar, maybe give it to a charity?

    Even if you aren't after low prices, GP's argument, while a popular sentiment, is also false.

    http://www.pbs.org/newshour/ma...

    TL;DR: Walmart (and other big box retailers) actually do pay higher wages to the line workers than typical mom and pop stores. Furthermore, unlike mom and pop shops, there are actually opportunities for promotion at a walmart. A typical general manager at walmart sits in the $100k/year range, and the lower level store managers aren't much lower. At a mom and pop retailer however, you'd be lucky if you made it anywhere past being a cashier or stocking shelves. Why? Because most family owned businesses typically assign valuable positions only to family members.

    As for GP's comment about Walmart treating suppliers bad, without knowing the specifics, I have a feeling that GP is talking about how Walmart has always lead the way in terms of making its supply chain more efficient, something that started with the barcode:

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/...

    And of course, remember how during the 90's, video games (especially PC games) came in boxes the size of a cereal box, but were mostly empty? Walmart alone changed that by establishing packaging requirements in order for a supplier to be allowed to put anything on their shelves. And yeah, you're damn right the supplier will hate it because they can't make their product bigger and more eye catching than their competitors, however in terms of being less environmentally wasteful, and ultimately reducing costs to the consumer, it totally made sense.

    Saving money isn't bad, and in many cases it means you're being more efficient and more practical.