Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will be testing this summer an option for consumers to be able to order product on its website and then have it kept in a physical locker at the store so they can pick it up without having to wait in line or talk to a store clerk.
The test, which will be conducted in about a dozen stories in an undisclosed market, is part of the world’s largest retailer’s overall strategy to offer increasingly demanding web-savvy shoppers the ability to shop any way they want. The company is also expanding its offerings online and improving a new “scan and go” shopping app so customers can immediately download coupons personalized to them.
Officials disclosed the moves Tuesday at a media event at its company’s global e-commerce offices in San Bruno, Calif., located in Silicon Valley.
The six-story offices, which house more than 1,000 employees ranging from engineers to merchandisers, includes (at)WalmartLabs, where many of the shopping innovations are coming from. It was formerly a webs analytics company called Kosmix which the discounter purchased in 2011 and then renamed (at)WalmartLabs.
The offices are different from the staid, sprawling corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. Clearly, it looks like an Internet startup. On the floor housing employees at (at)WalmartLabs, some workers are playing ping pong and pool. On another floor, web analysts watch oversized screens of Walmart.com and Samsclub.com to track any technology problems with the site.
The company conducts so-called “hack days” twice a year where most of the staff are allowed to pursue prototypes of their own liking. At the end of the day, they must show their work.
“We are tenacious about building the best-in-class e-commerce. We’re developing a density of talent that understands competition at Internet speed,” said Neil Ashe, who joined the discounter as president and CEO of the company’s global e-commerce division in January 2012. He had been president of CBS Interactive where he oversaw such online properties as cbs.com and CNET.com.
Wal-Mart used the one-day event to showcase how the discounter is meeting the challenges to fight off online rivals like eBay Inc. and amazon.com, which have been luring shoppers to the Web with their vast offerings of products and low prices. But the discounter is also following its own customers. More than half of its shoppers have smartphones and one third of its online traffic now comes from smartphones. For the holiday shopping season, that percentage figure was up to 40 …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News