Wal-Mart Opens Automated Grocery Pickup Kiosk
Wal-Mart is trying out an automated kiosk where shoppers can pick up groceries they've ordered online. The 20x80 foot building is located in the parking lot at a Wal-Mart Super Center in Oklahoma City. The kiosk is capable of fulfilling hundreds of orders in a day placed on Wal-Mart’s grocery website. More than 30,000 items, including fresh produce, meats, dairy products and organic groceries, can be ordered online for the same price they cost in-store and can be picked up free, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The minimum purchase is $30. The orders are delivered to the kiosk in bins that are stored inside. The kiosk customer pulls up to the building and walks up to an interface station to enter a pickup code. The kiosk retrieves the order, delivering it to the customer in a process that takes a minute or less.
Total Retail’s Take: Wal-Mart has Amazon.com in its crosshairs with the introduction of its grocery kiosk. Amazon recently opened a drive-through grocery store, AmazonFresh Pickup, where an employee brings online orders to customers’ cars. Amazon Go is a similar grocery concept that makes shopping easy — with no lines and no checkout required. The war between Wal-Mart and Amazon continues to heat up.
