Wal-Mart Wants Store Customers To Deliver Packages To Online Shoppers
from the leveraging-the-customer-base dept
Having just seen cases where legacy players have felt threatened by more innovative startups that take advantage of more distributed "peer-production" rather than top-down centralized systems of old, it's interesting to see a counter example. Apparently, Wal-Mart is considering a plan in which it tries to get in-store shoppers to help deliver packages to online buyers."I see a path to where this is crowd-sourced," Joel Anderson, chief executive of Walmart.com in the United States, said in a recent interview with Reuters.The company admits that it's just brainstorming the idea at this point, but it's always interesting to see big established companies recognizing that others have been disrupting parts of their core business, and rather than freak out about it, try to take the disruption even further. Of course, this might serve to disrupt other legacy providers, such as UPS and FedEx. Hopefully they won't freak out about it, but who wouldn't be surprised to start seeing stories raising moral panics about how "dangerous" this new plan will be since the drivers won't be wearing uniforms any more?
Wal-Mart has millions of customers visiting its stores each week. Some of these shoppers could tell the retailer where they live and sign up to drop off packages for online customers who live on their route back home, Anderson explained.
Wal-Mart would offer a discount on the customers' shopping bill, effectively covering the cost of their gas in return for the delivery of packages, he added.
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Filed Under: crowdsourcing, customers, delivery, disruption, innovation, peer economy
Companies: walmart
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Someone taking goods and never delivering.
Someone using it as a way to case out a place (Delivered really nice TV to that house, need to come back later....)
Then you also have to figure out how to deal with issues like if I order 5 bags of cement and my delivery person is 90 year old lady who can't handle more than 10 pounds at a time.
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Re:
At some point it just becomes easier just to hire some delivery guys.
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Legalities
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I've been asking YOU to deliver the goods, Mike!
And worry about physical dangers posed by strangers is NOT a "moral panic". That's just one of your favored cliches you toss in without regard to context. I suspect you've one of those programs where you pick a sentence template, add a specific word here and there, and that's the pejorative it picked. That program may be in your head.
Anyhoo, non-starter. We were promised delivery robots by now.
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Re: I've been asking YOU to deliver the goods, Mike!
Instead of Prenda Law.
Lol. You act as if Mikes writes this blog for you and you alone.
It must be difficult to get your over-stuffed self-inflated ego though doorways at times.
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Re: I've been asking YOU to deliver the goods, Mike!
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Re: I've been asking YOU to deliver the goods, Mike!
I'll greet him appropriately...
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Re: I've been asking YOU to deliver the goods, Mike!
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Re: I've been asking YOU to deliver the goods, Mike!
Oh, and Blue, its your comments that read as if they're from a template. That's because they rarely apply to the article and you've almost always got some sort of stupid, insane footer.
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Raises a number of privacy issues
2. Perhaps I don't want my neighbors knowing what I'm buying.
3. Perhaps I don't want Walmart handing out my name and address to third parties.
And so on.
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Re: Raises a number of privacy issues
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Extra small condoms?
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Re: Raises a number of privacy issues
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Re: Raises a number of privacy issues
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Re: Raises a number of privacy issues
> I'm a Walmart customer.
> 2. Perhaps I don't want my neighbors knowing what I'm
> buying.
You take those chances whenever order something via mail order. You have no idea who's driving that truck for UPS or FedEx, either. Could be one of your neighbors or their friends.
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Re: Re: Raises a number of privacy issues
not to mention, even if your neighbour IS employed by Fedex or UPS, what are the chances they are assigned to deliver to your house?
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Re: Raises a number of privacy issues
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Besides I've been to a Wal-Mart before, I don't want any of those people touching my stuff (especially food).
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I do think an opt-out option would be absolutely critical.
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Pass.
I'll keep paying a premium to have my valuables brought by professional delivery-persons instead of the skeezy minivan that flings those pennysaver newspapers on everyone's front lawn.
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Re: Pass.
So you agree with the RIAA/MPAA when they dump on the internet/iTunes/Amazon when those services innovated to bring the cost of delivery and service down for customers and put all the old distribution channels and methods out of work?
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Re: Re: Pass.
And yes, there's a fine line between efficiency and exploitation; but generally if you're screwing someone who depends on you, you've crossed over to the exploitation side.
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Not bad
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Likewise, the neighbourly / family aspect of it should limit liability - "I was just picking up eggs for Grandma..." comes across pretty different than "I was delivering eggs to Grandma for Walmart."
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Woot
Or maybe that 400lbs cow will bugger your bag of chips in your groceries before they get to your door.
I hate using Walmart for anything but really cheap and need it yesterday stuff to start with but this idea is fraught with issues. Maybe they can get some little up and coming 3rd party delivery startup to partner with then at least there's a chance the delivery peeps might be bonded or insured and there is a legit company to sue when things get really effed up.
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Read the article
I wonder if there would be a minimum purchase or a delivery charge. Where it might come in handy is if you are making dinner, are missing an ingredient, and don't want to run out for it.
According to the article, Wal-Mart would give in-store shoppers a financial incentive to do the delivery, but I wonder if the system would work for a $5 item, for example.
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A Sample Order
20 lbs. Sharp Cheddar (in half-pound pieces, say $4/lb),
5 lbs other cheese (ditto, Blue, Gorgonzola, Havardi, Muenster, Swiss),
10 gal. fruit juice, [viz. Apple, Grape (Red and White), Orange] (in sealed half gallon bottles, Vitamin C added, say, $5/gal),
[all of the above items to be USDA approved 100% cheese or juice]
2 gal assorted soda pop, assorted diet varieties, preferably spiked with B-complex vitamins, (in pint bottles, say, $3/gal),
2 dozen 15-ounce cans, corn, no sugar, salt, starch, or oil, $9/dozen.
Most of this stuff would be in case lots. That's round about $200, weighing more than a hundred and twenty pounds, and I'll toss in $20 for delivery to a second-floor landing, in a stairwell immediately adjacent to the parking lot, three or four miles from the nearest Wal-Mart. I expect the delivering party to furnish themselves with suitable carrying tools that this is not a problem.
I looked at Wal-Mart's website, and, apart from it being pretty javascript-encumbered, all I found were messages to the effect that they only sell this kind of stuff in the store. There was no sign of any willingness to negotiate on the basis of case-lots. My impression was that they expected one to use their website to buy things esoteric enough that they would not have them in the store.
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Re: A Sample Order
Now it could be argued that this is a great way to provide a financial benefit to Wal-Mart customers who get to do deliveries on the side. But Wal-Mart has not been known for the great salaries/benefits it gives its current employees, so I don't think giving in-store customers a little discount for delivering goods is going to overcome that image.
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Lack of uniforms actually would be an issue...
I tend to agree that it definitely is creative thinking, and it seems like there should be way to make it work. I wouldn't be too quick, though, to dismiss as merely an attempt to elicit "moral panic" questions about how we know we can trust the person who shows up at the door.
HM
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Re: Lack of uniforms actually would be an issue...
But it's got to be small enough that the delivery person can leave it at the door. You don't want an unverified person bringing something inside your residence.
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Response
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Excellent point. My auto insurance was modified years ago to specify no coverage if my vehicle was used commercially. I see broad interpretations in that language.
Do individual states have separate licensing requirements for drivers of delivery services and would those requirements apply to these one-off delivery arrangements?
Unless the vehicle(s) already require a commercial driver's license I have never heard of any licensing requirement for delivery services, other than the standard business license.
If you've ever seen a car or small truck that displayed a USDOT number: it means that company owns at least one vehicle that requires a commmercial driver's license. USDOT requires that number be displayed on all vehicles, including those that don't require CDL.
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Big Disruptive
If one thinks about big organization culture, and how in many cases structure can create, nay demand a certain amount of group think, it is telling that such an idea sees the light of day. I would not thought it of WalMart.
If not for disruptive ideas, the iron age would not have been. If not for disruptive ideas, the industrial age would not have been...etc. If not for disruptive ideas, where will we go from here?
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Fat too many cons than pros
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Delivery Service
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