Walmart Is Using Levers To Grow Its Online Business
Walmart quietly killed the minimum purchase of $35 on 2-hour delivery orders.
This is a good idea.
Walmart needs to think like a startup. Adoption = volume. Volume = better service. Better service = more adoption. All these drive better outcomes because in supply-chain, volume also equals better economics.
The big question is this. There will be only 1 or 2 "scaled" on-demand last-mile providers in the US. Yes, there are many chasing it now, but there will be winners and losers, and many of the losers will move to be regional players and suppliers to the larger players instead of being a global national brand.
We already know Instacart is one of these contenders. It has a marketplace and last-mile combined. Ensuring high selection and density. What people don't get is that vertical integration can only lower prices so much. The grocery industry's margins are low. Vertical integration only makes that less crappy. The margin is in ads, which means that whoever is able to attract the biggest ad budgets will have the lowest prices. If all your endcaps and prime shelf-space at Walmart are being bypassed by Instacart shoppers, where do you think ad dollars will flow? And who do you think will have better data and adtech? It's so interesting to watch this play out because data gains at scale. The interesting question to me is where is the most consumer scale, and as a result, who will get the outsized rewards in the market as a result. With scale comes lower prices. It's an effect not a cause
Target/Shipt needs more customers. Not on a trajectory to be a winner.
Walmart needs more selection. Amazon needs more selection in grocery in particular.
As for variation in customer experience, in any online experience, consistency is huge. This is why Amazon has worked for years and years to reduce or eliminate any supply chain variance. Whether that consistency is a great conversation with your picker, or if it's based on data and analytics for replacements, either or both are probably required.
Now is the time to place bets in widespread adoption and scale. The investment dollars are there for the players with the right approach.
