Walmart and Salesforce partner to sell technology to retailers

With the increasing time constraints in retail, Walmart Chasing a new side hustle.

The retail giant, known for selling groceries, toothpaste, toys and more in its supermarkets, wants to sell more technology and services to other companies. On Thursday, it announced a deal with sales force to ramp up sales of its GoLocal delivery service, which drops purchases at customers’ doors; and Store Assist, which helps employees pick and pack orders more quickly and accurately for curbside pickup and delivery.

Starting this spring, the services will be offered through Salesforce and listed on its app store for businesses.

Comes Wal-Mart’s latest push to commercialize its technology Where the retail environment gets tougher. his inflation forcing shoppers to spend more on essentials, Leadership Wal-Mart grocery sales soar. But the company also sells fewer, higher-margin items like electronics, clothing, and other discretionary goods.

Suresh Kumar, chief technology officer of Walmart Worldwide, said the deal with Salesforce will help Walmart improve the shopper experience.

“By bringing in other retailers, we can understand the needs of customers throughout the shopping journey and then be able to improve our products to be able to serve customers no matter how, where and when they shop,” he said. “This ultimately will also benefit us as we will continue to improve our products.”

For example, because Walmart’s GoLocal has more packages to deliver from more retailers, its drivers will have more intense routes, he said. This lowers the cost of Wal-Mart’s last-mile deliveries and allows the driver to drop off a customer’s packages from several retailers at one stop.

Walmart I was looking for new, more profitable ways to transform Millions of customers and more than 5,300 US stores and warehouse clubs in more money. These efforts include growing its advertising business, Walmart Connect; attract more sellers to the third-party marketplace and sell fulfillment services to them; and charging for Walmart Luminate, a customer insights tool for merchants and suppliers. I co-founded and supported it An emerging financial technology company. Walmart+ also launched, A subscription service that’s the retailer’s answer to Amazon Prime.

Walmart GoLocal launched in 2021 and signed up customers, Including Home Depot and chico. She started selling Store Assist, the technology her employees use in the store, in the summer.

With the moves, Walmart is taking a page from Amazon’s rival playbook. over the past two years, Amazon It licensed its cashless payment technology, called “Just Walk Out”, and Subscribe Airports, sports stadiums, arenas and Missouri grocer To bring technology into their stores. You are also expected to sell it Palm scan payment system And fired Analytics service Where brands pay for data about the performance of their products in physical Amazon stores.

Walmart has not disclosed details of the commercial agreements or estimated how big its business could become. However, they are showing signs of growth. Walmart said GoLocal has made more than 3 million deliveries to date. It exceeded 1 million deliveries in August.

Wal-Mart’s new business has become a regular part of the company’s earnings calls, too. In November, Wal-Mart Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said Wal-Mart added more than 8,000 sellers to the third-party market in its fiscal third quarter. Its digital advertising business increased more than 30% in the quarter globally, driven by 40% growth in Walmart Connect in the US and ads on Flipkart, a majority-owned e-commerce site in India.

Salesforce chief product officer David Schmeier said retailers are hungry for solutions as they try to keep up with high-expectation customers who switch between shopping in-store, ordering home and retrieving online purchases in-store or parking. According to Salesforce data, one in five online orders placed the weekend before Christmas were received in-store.

He added that Wal-Mart will feature its App Store as a technology by retailers and retailers.

Kumar, the company’s chief technology officer, said that even with all that it gives to other companies, Wal-Mart knows not to give away its secret sauce. Some of its technology will not be for sale.

“We’re actually very thoughtful in terms of choosing the kinds of technologies that we want to offer to other companies,” he said.

– CNBC’s Annie Palmer contributed to this story.