Shopping lists are increasingly including a new item:
convenience
The grocery industry is a great example. American shoppers
average about 60 minutes spent shopping for food each week. To cut
this time down, more and more of Walmart’s U.S. customers find
themselves taking advantage of online shopping options like pickup
and delivery.
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But the U.S. isn’t the only place customers want convenience.
Walmart Canada’s recent announcement to expand grocery delivery
with Instacart demonstrates how quickly customers are responding to
time-saving innovations in markets across the globe.
“Customers around the world are kind of the same,” said JP
Suarez, EVP and Chief Administration Officer for Walmart
International. “They want quality, a great assortment, a great
price, and they want it whenever they want it.”
While convenience is a shared desire, the solutions for
delivering it are different in local markets. Here’s a look at how
Walmart International is innovating when it comes to crossing the
last mile – getting items even closer to their final
destination.
A Shared Priority
In some cases, grocery delivery isn’t just easier – it’s
life-changing. At age 81, Ana Luis de Anda Cortes has a prosthetic
leg and can’t drive. This means ordering from her local Superama
store in Mexico City is a service she relies on.
Superama has offered grocery delivery since 1991, and today the
brand delivers an extended assortment nationwide. In fact,
customers in Mexico are so accustomed to grocery delivery, it’s
common for them to visit the store and ask if associates can take
their shopping baskets to their homes.
Across Mexico, a mixture of owned delivery vehicles and delivery
partners allows Walmart’s many formats to deliver to customers
almost anywhere. But Mexico isn’t the only market with such a broad
reach. South Africa’s Massmart also uses a network of third-party
and owned vehicles, including crowdsourced provider Wumdrop, which
operates in 16 Makro stores in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria
and Durban to deliver to its customers.
Many markets are adding services rapidly, so more customers can
experience added convenience. Argentina added 2,000 bikers – many
with special, sustainable tricycles – in 2018 to serve the larger
Buenos Aires area. Chile is adding pickup services to stores around
the country at a rapid rate including the recent addition of a
southernmost location in Punta Arenas. And, customers are
responding – 60% of all Chilean online orders are for pickup.
Meanwhile in Central America, the race is on as Guatemala begins
testing pickup in stores with plans to expand to the rest of the
region.
As pickup and delivery services become more commonplace, markets
are finding additional, creative ways to offer convenience. In
Canada, Walmart and PenguinPickUp launched co-branded locations in
urban areas, making grocery shopping easier with pickup stations
conveniently located for customers who are several miles from a
Supercentre.
Speeding Up Delivery
In the Chinese cities of Shenzhen, Shanghai and Chengdu,
customers can expect lightning-fast, one-hour grocery deliveries.
Recently, Walmart China completed a delivery in under nine minutes
from the moment the order was placed until the product was at the
customer’s door.
Walmart China works with the logistics team at Dada-JD Daojia to
offer the speedy delivery service, which transports groceries
directly from a warehouse-like depot system to customers’ doors. As
of January 2019, Walmart China operated more than 30 depots with
additional locations on the way.
ASDA in the United Kingdom is stepping up its delivery pace by
launching same-day delivery to over 270 stores. But, the team isn’t
stopping there. The British retailer is testing a service in
partnership with Just Eat that delivers 100 essential products in
30 minutes or less.
Over in Japan, the Seiyu team is following these leads by
piloting one-hour premium delivery this year. But that’s not what’s
making headlines. This summer, customers visiting popular tourist
spot Sarushima Island in Tokyo Bay will be able to have food and
other fresh products flown in by a drone. The test program is the
result of a partnership between Seiyu and Rakuten.
These services illustrate the power of great ideas generated by
local markets.
“When we’re doing our job well, it means making it really easy
for markets to move fast,” Suarez said. “We can connect them and
accelerate, and then, get out of the way.”
Innovating in India
At its core, retail innovation is focused on a simple goal:
finding the solution that makes the most sense for customers.
In many respects, the Indian market is unique.
In rural India, small stores called kiranas are a major part of
how many customers get their groceries. Like many small business
owners, they buy products wholesale, so they can keep their costs
low. But, many wholesalers don’t offer online payments, which
pushes business owners to make a special trip to their banks for
cash. The time spent at the bank can mean interrupted service back
at the store, as many kiranas have to close their shops to stand in
line and make a withdrawal.
Earlier this year, Walmart India announced that it was adding
the PhonePe payment method, allowing over 1 million members of Best
Price’s B2B Cash and Carry wholesale stores to pay for purchases
via their phones.
To those not familiar with India’s challenges, this may not look
like cutting-edge progress, but it’s a creative solution in the
global journey toward a digital economy. This new mobile payment
system goes the extra mile in allowing kiranas to purchase items
without having to leave their stores, so a broader network of
customers has the opportunity to get what they need with
uninterrupted service.
“The small shops are really important to us in India,” Suarez
said. “Through them, we can get into communities we wouldn’t be
able to otherwise.”
Innovative projects like these give Suarez a lot of optimism for
the future.
“The market teams are excelling at finding ways to make life
easier for our customers. That’s what’s really brilliant about our
last mile services around the world,” he said.
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Pedro Mucciolo Pedro.Mucciolo@walmart.com
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