If you think back ten years ago when shopping online was something out of the Jetsons, today it is everywhere with Walmart leading the way with more than 1,500 locations and hundreds more on the way.
Walmart is continuing to develop ways to serve its customers now and into the future and it is constantly looking at different technology and capabilities that keep customers loving the time-saving, wallet-saving service that is Online Grocery for years to come.
Enter Walmart's latest project - Waymo. Waymo is a self-driving technology company with a mission to make it safe and easy for everyone to get around - without the need for anyone in the driver's seat. They've safely driven over eight million miles on roads across 25 US cities already. Walmart is working with them on an online grocery pilot project - limited to a group within Waymo's 400 daily users known as early riders that will run out of one Walmart store in Chandler, Arizona.
Customers in the pilot project will place an Online Grocery Pickup order on the Walmart website, while personal shoppers pick and pack the order based on the customers' pick up times. Waymo does the rest - they transport the customers to and from the pickup, leaving the customers to use that travel time doing other things.
"The purpose of all this, to learn," said Tom Ward, vice president of digital operations, Walmart US. "While giving customers a unique experience with amazing technology, we're learning how we can make Walmart Online Grocery Pickup even more convenient. Waymo's experience, industry-leading technology and mission on safety is helping us enter this space in the right way. We're excited to see what this pilot and the future holds."
