US: Walmart brings mobile check-in to grocery e-commerce | Progresiv
Following an initial roll-out at Sam’s Club, Walmart has introduced mobile check-in to its grocery ecommerce service in the US. Focused on making store pick-up as quick and efficient as possible 
Walmart’s mobile check-in service enables customers of the retailer’s grocery ecommerce service to notify stores when they are about to arrive and collect their order. This enables store teams to assemble the order, bringing the fresh, ambient and frozen items together having already picked them earlier in the day. This helps Walmart to reduce the time that customers are waiting at store when collecting their orders, and comes as competition in this fast-growing channel intensifies.
In addition to Walmart rolling out store pick-up to 500 locations this year, Kroger is also on track to hit 500 stores with its ‘ClickList’ service. Other retailers have also been investing in the channel, many through partnerships with companies such as Instacart, Shipt and Deliv, while Amazon have been focusing on expanding the reach of Amazon Fresh and reducing delivery times. Walmart will be hoping that the potential to shave minutes of the process will be an important point of difference for its service, which is already generating high levels of shopper loyalty and repeat transactions. With the retailer having developed geo-fencing capabilities as part of its store mapping program, mobile check-in could evolve in the future to be automatically driven by a customer’s location, and proximity to the store.
The extension of this service from Sam’s Club demonstrates the speed with which the retailer will move to deploy successful initiatives from other parts of the business. Mobile check-in has proven to be very popular with business customers at Sam’s Club, with Club Pickup up 31% year-on-year following the launch of innovations such as mobile check-in and a prepayment option. This new service complements other new initiatives which have been developed, including Scan & Go and Walmart Pay, as it dials up the focus on helping its customers to save time, in addition to saving money. (www.igd.com)
