Walmart is expanding its service that delivers your groceries straight to your refrigerator, the company announced today. First launched in autumn 2019, Walmart’s in-home delivery service, as it is called, enables customers to place grocery orders online and then receive their deliveries by having a Walmart employee enter their home through a smart lock. The service was initially tested in a small handful of markets, including Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Vero Beach, and is now available to 6 million US households with further launches in Northwest Arkansas, Atlanta, Phoenix, and DC, Walmart says today plans that Expand in-home delivery more widely, aiming to reach 30 million US homes by the end of the year.
This includes upcoming launches in key markets like Dallas, Nashville, LA, Chicago, Houston, Indianapolis, and others.
As part of this expansion, Walmart plans to hire more than 3,000 delivery drivers later this year. It will also build a fleet of 100% all-electric delivery vans that will be used for deliveries while also marketing the service in the neighborhoods served.
The InHome service itself costs $ 19.95 per month, which makes it more suitable for customers who work or travel outside of the home during the day and want to put their purchases away while they are away.
Credit: Walmart
While it may seem strange for a delivery person to walk into your house to fill your fridge, the InHome service addresses a major consumer complaint with online grocery delivery – that you have to be home (or at least be going home soon) in to place your cold and frozen groceries after your order has been placed on your doorstep.
Services like Shipt and Instacart – Walmart’s leading grocery competitors – do not offer a solution to keeping customers’ cold items beyond what may be double packaging at the buyer’s discretion. Buyers for these services only use the paper or plastic bags provided by the store at the checkout, and there is no system of replacing insulated bags or boxes at the time of delivery or using some type of insulated cooler at the customer’s home. This means that customers sometimes come home and find their ice cream melted or other cold foods spoiled if left out for too long on a hot day. To make matters worse, the services are not always delivered at the time you specify, which means deliveries will arrive too early or too late to be convenient.
By offering an in-home service, Walmart can better manage the logistics of delivery instead of having to deal with customer requests according to specific time slots throughout the day. In the meantime, customers are convinced that they have not only mastered the last mile, but also mastered the last steps between the door threshold and the refrigerator or kitchen worktop.
“For our customers, convenience is the most important factor,” said Tom Ward, Walmart’s SVP of Last Mile Delivery, to TechCrunch. “People love to do the things they want to do and they don’t always want to wait at home for deliveries or whatever … Really, the ultimate convenience is to come home and have all of the items you bought have to be left waiting for you at home, ”he said.
Credit: Walmart
InHome customers also appreciate the other perks that come with their subscription, noted Ward.
Subscribers can access all functions of. access Walmart +, the retailer’s Amazon Prime competitor offering free shipping and more. InHome customers can also can leave items they want to return to Walmart on her counter so that the in-home delivery driver can take her to the store. And that’s just the beginning, suggested Ward.
“We were essentially trying to think about what amenities customers would really want,” he said. “Rx will be in sight,” added Ward, referring to Walmart’s plans to integrate his The business of delivering prescriptions with InHome, which is already being teased on the InHome website.
As far as the in-house delivery process is concerned, the InHome system itself functions largely as it did when it was introduced.
The system is based on smart lock technology and a video camera that is worn on the delivery driver’s uniform. Walmart partnered with Level Home for their smart entry technology for front doors (Level Bolt and Level Touch) and previously worked with Nortek Security & Control for their smart entry technology for garage doors. It now offers a retrofit kit for genius and overhead garage door opener instead.
Walmart customers can choose one of the devices for $ 49.95 or, alternatively, use their existing Smart Lock or garage keypad.
The delivery partner can enter the house with a one-time access code that is provided in his InHome app. The app also notifies the customer of the start of delivery and switches on the camera on the employee’s vest. This records the entire delivery, which the customer can view via his own InHome app. This is to remove any security concerns about the entry of an unknown person into the house when the customer is absent. The delivery worker clears away the food with a mask, then disinfects the surfaces used and seals them when leaving.
This video recording can be accessed for up to a week after each delivery, notes Walmart. Tests have shown, however, that customers trust the process after some applications – similar to how they trust other service employees who receive a door code – such as a cleaning lady or a dog handler.
It’s often the same person who makes the Walmart deliveries, and the company finds that it takes at least a year of employment to advance to the new position of Associate Delivery Driver.
As the service broadens, Walmart says it is now officially taking on the role of Associate Delivery Driver as a new full-time position paying $ 1.50 more per hour than most of its positions in the business. These employees qualify for corporate benefits such as health, vision, and dental insurance, 401,000 matching, paid time off, free counseling, and Walmart’s Live Better U program, which pays for a free college degree. The retailer says it will initially fill the new positions through internal promotions, and employees will be trained both in person and through virtual reality experiences through Walmart’s existing VR training platform.
Most of the delivery drivers who already do this job have an average of over five years with the company, Ward said. While promotions to the new position will primarily involve existing employees, Walmart expects to fill the positions these employees have vacancies – so this expansion will result in growth in Walmart’s total workforce.
“It builds on that track record of more than 300,000 employees who were promoted to more responsible, higher-paying positions in Fiscal Year 21,” noted Ward.
The electric vans used by in-home drivers, meanwhile, are advancing Walmart’s goal of running a zero-emission logistics fleet by 2040 and are backed by Walmart’s 1,396 EV charging points in stores and clubs in 41 states, the company said.
(Walmart stands ready to outline its partnership efforts on the EV front in a separate announcement at CES.)
