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I recently came across an article in Forbes Magazine about Walmart debuting its Pickup-Grocery service. Essentially, this free service allows customers to place their orders online any time from two hours to three weeks in advance. When customers are ready to pick up their order they simply drive to the Walmart Pickup-Grocery warehouse and notify attendants that they are ready to pick up their orders. Shoppers have about 10,000 items to choose from, including dairy, meat and produce as well as health and beauty care and household items. Pickup-Grocery is an interesting concept. It certainly tailors to the problem of time. Time is always a limited commodity, so any solution that saves shoppers the time and hassle involved in the tedious but necessary task of gathering groceries has the potential to be more convenient and beneficial.
Pickup-Grocery has the potential to be very successful, however there are some concerns that arise, such as trusting Walmart clerks to pick groceries for customers. Currently, this service is in the preliminary stages and is only available in Bentonville, Arkansas, Walmart’s hometown. It will be interesting to see how Walmart proceeds with this idea and how it plans to expand this innovative concept.