As times get tough in retail, walmart A new side hustle is chasing.
The retail giant, best known for selling groceries, toothpaste, toys and more in its big box stores, is looking to sell its technology and services to other companies. It announced the deal on Thursday sales force to increase sales of its GoLocal delivery service, which drops purchases at customers’ doorsteps; and Store Assist, which helps employees pick and pack orders more quickly and accurately for curbside pickup and delivery.
Beginning this spring, the services will be offered through Salesforce and listed in its App Store for businesses.
Walmart’s latest push to commercialize its technology comes As the retail environment gets tougher, there is inflation Forced shopkeepers forced to spend more on essential things driving walmart groceries sales, But the company is also selling less high-margin items like electronics, clothing and other discretionary merchandise.
Suresh Kumar, Walmart’s global chief technology officer, said the deal with Salesforce will help Walmart improve the shopper experience.
He added, “By bringing other retailers on board, we can understand what a customer needs throughout the entire shopping journey and then we can improve our products to serve customers no matter how, where And when do you shop?” “Ultimately it’s going to benefit us as well as we continue to improve our products.”
For example, as Walmart’s Golocaly has more packages to deliver from more retailers, its drivers will have denser routes, he said. This reduces Walmart’s last-mile delivery costs and allows a driver to drop off a customer’s package from multiple retailers in one stop.
walmart have looked for new and more profitable ways to turn Its millions of customers and more than 5,300 US stores and warehouse clubs are in the money. Those efforts include growing its advertising business, Walmart Connect; Attract more sellers to our third-party marketplace and sell fulfillment services to them; and Walmart charging for Luminate, a customer insight tool for merchants and suppliers. co-founded and supported a financial technology startup, It also launched Walmart+, A subscription service that is the retailer’s answer to Amazon Prime.
walmart Launched GoLocal in 2021 and signed on customers, Including home depot and Chico’s. It introduced the sale of Store Assist, technology that employees its own stores, over the summer.
With the moves, Walmart is taking a page from rival Amazon’s playbook. In the last two years, Amazon has licensed its cashierless checkout technology, called “Just Walk Out” and signed up airports, sports stadiums, arenas and a missouri grocer To bring technology to your stores. ready to sell it Palm-Scanning Payment System and launched an analytics service Where brands pay for data on how their products perform in Amazon’s physical stores.
Walmart has not disclosed details of the commercial agreements or estimated how large its commercialization business could grow. Yet it is showing signs of growth. Walmart said that Golocall has made over 3 million deliveries so far. It crossed 1 million deliveries in August.
Walmart’s new businesses have also become a regular part of the company’s earnings calls. In November, Walmart chief financial officer John David Rainey said that Walmart added more than 8,000 sellers to its third-party marketplace in the fiscal third quarter. Its digital advertising business grew more than 30% in the quarter globally, with Walmart Connect growing 40% in the US and ads coming to Flipkart, an e-commerce site in India that it owns.
David Schmaier, Salesforce chief product officer, said retailers are hungry for solutions as they try to keep up with customers who have high expectations and are more likely to shop in-store, shop in their homes, and shop in stores or parking lots. Make the transition between online shopping. According to data from Salesforce, one in five online orders made the weekend before Christmas were picked up in-store.
He said Walmart will position its app store as a technology enabler for retailers and retailers.
Still, even as other companies offer it, Walmart is mindful about not giving away its secret sauce, said Kumar, the company’s technology chief. Some of its technologies will not be for sale.
“We’re really very deliberate in terms of choosing the technologies that we want to offer to other businesses,” he said.
—CNBC’s Annie Palmer contributed to this story.