Tag Archives: Walmart

DoorDash Ends Partnership With Walmart

Information,

Business Insider reported that DoorDash is ending its years-long partnership with Walmart of delivering groceries and other products from stores to customers, people close to the matter said.

According to Business Insider, one person close to the situation who requested anonymity because the matter is confidential said DoorDash decided to stop working with the retail giant “as it was not longer mutually beneficial” and to “focus on its long-term customer relationships.” Their identity is known to Insider.

DoorDash sent Walmart a letter to terminate their partnership earlier this month, and gave a 30 day notice, which makes the termination effective in September, the person said.

Walmart posted the following in its Walmart Offers website: Walmart Inc. and DoorDash Inc. are ending their four-year delivery partnership. “We have agreed to part ways,” Walmart said in an email Friday. “We’d like to thank DoorDash for their partnership and support of our customers the past several years.”

A DoorDash spokesperson told TechCrunch in an email: “We’d like to thank Walmart for their partnership and are looking forward to continuing to build and provide support for merchants in the years ahead with our leading Marketplace and Platform offerings.”

What went wrong between DoorDash and Walmart? Business Insider wrote that Walmart is acquiring Delivery Drivers, Inc., the gig-labor management company behind Walmart’s Spark network for an undisclosed amount, a Walmart spokesperson confirmed to Insider.

According to Business Insider, DDI acquisition is the latest of several moves by Walmart to bring more of its logistics network in-house, including acquiring vendor management software firm Volt Systems in early August, last-mile peer-to-peer delivery app JoyRun in 2020, and same-day delivery startup Parcel in 2017.

Business Insider also wrote that The DDI acquisition has been in the works for months and is intended to simplify the driver experience with a single point of contact, according to a DDI spokesperson.

Earlier this month, TechCrunch reported that DoorDash has teamed up with Facebook Marketplace “to make that awkward exchange of items with a stranger a bit easier”. The company said DoorDash Drive, its business-to-business service that provides drivers to merchants through their own website or app, is now in the early stages of testing a service that will allow DoorDash drivers to pick up and drop off Facebook Marketplace items to customers.

In short, it appears that Walmart and DoorDash initially were good partners for each other. As time went by, each company decided to build itself up in an effort to move away from that partnership. Sometimes, things just don’t work out.

Walmart+ Members Will Receive The Paramount+ Essential Plan

Streaming,

Walmart announced it is adding a new streaming benefit for Walmart+ subscribers. The Paramount+ Essential subscription is an added bonus at no extra cost.

Walmart+ members will be able to stream premium entertainment as a benefit for the first time as part of their membership starting in September. The Paramount+ Essential Plan will give Walmart+ members access to Paramount+’s breadth of hugely popular content from acclaimed original dramas such as “1883” and “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” to the most popular preschool franchise, “PAW Patrol,” to recent blockbuster films such as “Sonic the Hedgehog 2,” to live sports.

According to Walmart, the Walmart+ subscription will remain at $98 a year or $12.95 a month and include the Paramount + Essential Plan subscription with an added $59 value.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Walmart has been exploring a subscription video-streaming deal to draw more people to Walmart+ as it seeks to challenge Amazon.com Inc., which has grown its own Prime membership program to about 200 million global members.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the companies agreed to a 12-month exclusivity agreement and a two-year deal that would give Walmart+ members access to Paramount’s ad-supported streaming service, according to people familiar with the deal. The perk will be available starting in September, Walmart said.

The Wall Street Journal also reported that the deal between Walmart and Paramount is the latest tie-up in the fast-changing streaming industry, where a growing group of companies are looking to bundle content to draw viewers or customers. YouTube is planning to launch an online store for streaming video services, and has renewed talks with entertainment companies about participating in the platform. YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet Inc., would join Apple Inc., Roku Inc., and Amazon, which all have hubs to sell streaming video services.

The Hollywood Reporter provided additional information. The Walmart+ membership program gives subscribers unlimited free deliveries of groceries and other household items, mobile scanning options in stores and gas discounts. The partnership with Paramount+ will provide Walmart+ members access to the entire Paramount+ streaming service under the ad-supported tier, which does not include live coverage from users’ local CBS stations.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, existing Paramount+ subscribers will not be given access to Walmart+ in return.

Personally, it bothers me when large companies hoard digital media and stick it behind a subscription “pay wall”. Doing so makes it much harder for consumers to access to the media they want to watch. This situation either forces people to pay for subscriptions that they cannot easily afford, or to miss out.

Trump “Approved the Deal in Concept” Between TikTok and Oracle

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One day after the U.S. Department of Treasury stated that WeChat and TikTok would be prohibited in the United States, President Donald Trump has “approved the deal in concept”. The more I read about This situation, the murkier it gets.

The U.S. Department of Treasury posted a new statement:

The President has reviewed a deal among Oracle, Walmart, and TikTok Global to address the national security threat posed by TikTok’s operations. Oracle will be responsible for key technology and security responsibilities to protect all U.S. user data. Approval of the transaction is subject to a closing with Oracle and Walmart and necessary documentation and conditions to be approved by CFIUS.

Bloomberg has reported the following: “I approved the deal in concept,” Trump told reporters Saturday as he left the White House for a campaign rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina. “If they get it done, that’s great. If they don’t, that’s OK too.” I have no idea what President Trump means by that.

According to Bloomberg, the new company will be called TikTok Global. It has agreed to funnel $5 billion new tax dollars to the U.S. and set up an education fund, which Trump said would satisfy his demand that the U.S. government receive a payment from the deal.

However, Reuters has reported that ByteDance was not aware that this deal involved a $5 billion education fund. On a social media post, ByteDance said it was the first time it had heard that news.

It gets even stranger. The Wall Street Journal reported that ByteDance would retain roughly 80% ownership of TikTok Global “according to people familiar with the situation”. Because ByteDance is about 40% owned by U.S. investors, the new company can be described has having majority American ownership. To me, it sounds like TikTok Global might remain connected to ByteDance despite this deal.

Bloomberg also reported that TikTok promised to hire an additional 15,000 jobs, more than the 10,000 positions the company already pledged to fill earlier this year. It appears that TikTok Global will be an independent company. And that TikTok Global “will likely” be headquartered in Texas.

TikTok stated that the proposal between TikTok, Oracle, and Walmart “will resolve the security concerns of the US Administration and settle questions around TikTok’s future in the US”.

How is Walmart connected to this deal? CNBC reported that Walmart said it has tentatively agreed to purchase a 7.5% stake, and CEO Doug McMillon would serve as one fo the five board members of the newly created TikTok Global company.

In a press release, Oracle announced that it was chosen to become TikTok’s secure cloud technology provider. Oracle said this decision by TikTok was heavily influenced by Zoom’s recent success in moving a large portion of its video conferencing capacity to the Oracle Public Cloud.

Walmart will Train Workers with Oculus Go

VR

As someone who has spent several years working in retail environments, I know how boring and tedious training can be. Nobody wants to sit through videos, with awkward actors, who resolve customer service situations in ways that would never work in real life. Walmart might have found a way to make training less terrible for employees.

Walmart is providing Oculus Go virtual reality headsets to all of its stores in the United States. The headsets are part of a VR-based employee training program. Employees will use the headsets to access 45 activity-based modules created by STRIVR.

Walmart will send four headsets to every Walmart supercenter and two to every Neighborhood Market and discount store. More than 17,000 Oculus Go headsets will be in stores by the end of 2018.

The information on Walmart’s website states that every associate – including those on the floor who interact with customers the most – will have access to the same training that their managers and department managers do at the Academies.

One good thing about using a VR-based training is that employees can make mistakes in a virtual environment. I think that would be much less intimidating than having to make mistakes on the sales floor, with irate customers, while all of your coworkers watch you struggle.

Training videos make employees passively absorb information in a way that doesn’t match what happens on the sales floor. The Oculus Go VR activities are interactive, and can be done over and over again. That’s a much more interesting way to learn new skills and to perfect them.

Walmart’s Alphabot Robots will Collect Groceries

Robotics,

Walmart announced that they are set to launch a new pilot called Alphabot. It uses first-of-its-kind automation to help Walmart associates to fill online grocery orders faster than ever before. In other words, Walmart will use specially made robots to gather up groceries for orders that were placed online.

The Alphabot system was developed by Alert Innovation especially for Walmart. The Alphabot Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS) and Automated Each-Picking System (AEPS), in addition to a highly innovative picking workstation, creates the world’s “goods-to-picker” each-picking technology.

Individual Alphabots move through a specially designed warehouse with a bin. They go around and collect the items that are on a Walmart customer’s online shopping list. The Alphabots are under the control of a single Master Control System (MCS).

Each Alphabot will automatically bring items from storage to Walmart associates who will consolidate the items in the order. Human workers will handpick the fresh produce and meats that are part of an individual grocery order.

The Alphabot system is being installed at the Walmart Supercenter in Salem, New Hampshire, as part of that store’s grand opening. Walmart plans to have Alphabot online and running by the end of the year.

Did You Get Your iPad on Black Friday?

IPAD, Technology, , , , ,

Target-Black-FridayApple was pretty secretive on their Black friday sale. Target seemed to be the best option for an iPad this week and people stood in line for their black friday deal as early as 8 PM Thursday night. So did you get a new iPad Air or iPad mini?

After scouring the ads, I chose to stand in line at Target last night. They offered a $100 gift card with purchase of an iPad Air or $75 for an iPad mini. I got there at 7:50 expecting about 25-30% of the crowd was heading toward the iPad line.

Walmart offered $100 gift cards for iPad mini. Best Buy also had a gift card deal. Apple store only had a $75 card, didn’t advertise their deals and also didn’t give any deal for a Retina mini. So hopefully the 20% waiting in front of me for iPads won’t deplete the inventory too bad.

Once the doors opened, the line moved quicker than a one horse open sleigh. Of course, that was the first line. The second line was the true wait – people anxious for their iPads for the holidays.

What was interesting was the people I talked to in line already had iPads. This was either an upgrade or they wanted to get a second tablet for their families. One person was waiting for a Nexus 10 tablet, but decided to get the iPad as well.

Target was also ready for this event as most people got the iPad they wanted. They did run out of 16 GB iPad Air at about 9:30 PM. I was in line for a 32 GB model anyway and I saw a lot of iPad minis getting sold, too.  You could even get 2nd and 4th generation iPads that night.

I tweeted VegasBill during the event, who also was waiting in a Target store line in Vegas. I shouted out “This is what it will look like in a couple hours”.

I don’t normally do Black Friday. Those years I did, I was always disappointed because it was 4 in the morning and we would have to wait 6-8 weeks for rebates of specials.

This year was a bit different. I wasn’t too upset on the 2+ hour wait and I got the iPad Air I was looking for. Best part – I got a gift card which I could use at that moment if I wanted.

I did suggest that next year Target should talk with Starbucks and get a mobile barista to stand at the iPad line selling coffee…

Oh Apple, Splendid Acephalous

Apple, Opinion, , ,

We’ve all seen the pattern and can recognize it. Successful organization has successful charismatic leader. Something happens to remove successful charismatic leader from organization. Then, organization looses coherence and suffers, or worse. This seems to be a very common pattern that occurs with most leaders and most organizations.

Even Mom and Pop restaurants suffer this fate. Restaurant does great as long as Mom and Pop are directly involved. Once Mom and Pop are removed (or remove themselves) from the picture, the business is never the same and may well fail.

When Sam Walton died back in 1992, I was certain that Walmart as an organization would probably either suffer some sort of meltdown or even outright failure. I turned out to be wrong. The thing that Sam Walton was highly effective at was that he was able to inspire as many of his employees as possible to make his dream of Walmart their own dream and put something of themselves into making that dream happen. With this structure, the organization did not depend on Sam Walton as its motivating identity force. Sam Walton inspired his employees to make their own success of Walmart.

Steve Jobs did exactly the opposite. Steve Jobs set himself up as THE motivating entity at Apple, with everything revolving around him. He not only was the primary motivating force for his employees, but incredibly this sense of identity also extended to customers. Steve was able to take Apple to heretofore unknown heights.

Unfortunately, it all depended on his continued existence.

Oh Apple, Splendid Acephalous

Corpulence Unmatched, Clinging To Dysfunction

Best Of Everything

Alas, No One Now To Point The Way