Walmart is expanding its delivery service, InHome, to more than 30 million households in 2022 and is building an all-electric fleet for it.
Jan. 5, 2022
Well, ladies and gentlemen, the future has arrived. No, it’s not robots. Not drone delivery either. Just some guy from Walmart (NYSE: WMT) letting themselves into your home, wandering about stacking your shelves and fridge.
Not what I expected either, to be honest.
Walmart’s Latest Delivery Option
Okay, so you’re probably wondering exactly how this works. The service is InHome, and it’s Walmart’s latest take on home delivery options — even when you’re not there.
On arrival, the Walmart employee uses a one-time code to access your home, and a video camera strapped to the associate’s vest will begin recording the whole thing. The recorded footage will be sent to the customer — available for viewing for up to seven days afterward — but according to Walmart, customers using the service have built up a level of trust and aren’t even checking the recording anymore.
To me, this is absolutely bizarre, but it’s clearly working. Walmart surely isn’t going to turn its nose up at an opportunity to make money either. Not only will Walmart be raking it in through this subscription service — $19.95 per month or $148 per year — but it’s also trying to get its smart locks business up and running, which retail at $49.95. Crafty.
Walmart is hiring 3,000 employees specifically for this function and aims to bring the service to over 30 million households this year. The company has been doing express delivery for years for 160,000 items in 3,400 stores, reaching a whopping 70% of the U.S. population, so this is just the newest iteration.
Look, it might not be “cool” like Amazon’s ‘Just-Walk-Out’ feature that allows you to pick bits off the shelves and head right towards the exit. But, it appears to be something customers want to avail off of. Build it and they will come, I suppose.