Wal-Mart challenges Amazon. The largest retailer in the US, with 4.700 stores across the country, is throwing itself into e-commerce and especially fast home delivery, activities in which Amazon, which also recently exceeded the threshold of $1.000 per share on the Stock Exchange, excels worldwide. The largest supermarket chain in the world, noted "for his online sales often made late", writes the Wall Street Journal, therefore hunts down the so-called "last mile", and does so with a singular gimmick: not only drones or other technological oddities, but by exploiting the home-work commute of their sales assistants who reach the store by car .
“The retailer – writes WSJ -, which last September bought the e-commerce company Jet.com for 3,3 billion dollars, therefore hopes to exploit its thousands of workers throughout the States (it is the largest of private work in the country) to compete with Amazon", which instead hires local couriers. The challenge is also launched on the very fast delivery, the famous one-hour delivery, which Wal-Mart wants to offer in 45 cities and which it has already tested "with a few hundred deliveries".
“Imagine all the routes our employees take in their cars to and from the store, and all the homes of prospective customers they pass along the way,” said Marc Lore, newly hired head of e-commerce at Wal-Mart. precisely for the online breakthrough and which has already brought home the first results: Wal-Mart's US e-commerce sales grew 63% in the last quarter, including those made through Jet.com and other recently acquired companies.
“The final part of the delivery of the order at home – writes the Wall Street Journal -, known as "last mile", is often the most expensive and the most demanding for the operator, explain all the logistics experts”. In the near future in which this step will be carried out by drones or driverless cars (or by Uber and Lyft drivers, as Wal-Mart itself is planning to do), the plan is instead to do everything at home and old-fashioned way: the package is brought to you by the clerk on his way home in his car.
Wal-Mart store workers, explains the WSJ, who have a car and pass an eligibility test, they can choose to deliver up to 10 packages per day, using a mobile application that suggests the most convenient orders to carry out according to their route to or from home. They would get paid on time, though Wal-Mart has declined to say how much they will make, and this could present a problem for part timers who would thus become full timers, resulting in the requirement for health insurance and higher costs for the employer. "Not to mention the discontent of those who don't travel by car and are therefore excluded from this possibility of rounding up their salary", adds the American daily.
Otherwise the US distribution giant will only have to do as Instacart, fast delivery service (within the hour) of groceries founded in 2012 and which offers both the products and the possibility of delivering them to anyone, effectively offering even occasional work to those who declare themselves willing to do so. This is how it works: those who have free time sign up for the app, indicate their availability times and accept orders via smartphone. He then goes to the supermarket to do the shopping - even for several customers at the same time -, pay with a special card and deliver the orders within the indicated time period. What if the future was still made by people?
