Walmart offers smart retail technology to others
- August 17, 2021
- Steve Rogerson
Retail giant Walmart is offering several of its own technologies and capabilities to other businesses and brands seeking to serve customers better as they increasingly shop across digital and physical storefronts.
As part of this effort, Walmart has announced a partnership with Adobe to integrate Walmart’s Marketplace online and in-store fulfilment and pickup technologies with Adobe Commerce, a commerce offering for merchants and brands.
During the past several years, Walmart has built an organisation that has developed its own technologies and services to meet the rapidly evolving needs of customers at scale. These capabilities enable Walmart to serve customers better, create differentiated experiences and grow its business as digital shopping continues to increase.
“We’ve built new capabilities to serve the evolving needs of our own customers, and we have a unique opportunity to use our experience to help other businesses do the same,” said John Furner, chief executive officer of Walmart. “Commercialising our technologies and capabilities helps us sustainably reinvest back into our customer value proposition.”
Through the Adobe Commerce platform, retail businesses will be able to use Walmart’s cloud-based services to offer seamless pickup and delivery to their customers. Businesses will be able to reach new customers on Walmart’s Marketplace where they can leverage the company’s fulfilment services to offer two-day shipping across the USA. The partnership with Adobe to offer these capabilities could help businesses of all sizes improve their customer experience while operating more efficiently.
“The core mission of helping people save money and live better is at the heart of every idea including scan-and-go and checkout technologies, AI-powered smart substitutions and pickup and delivery,” said Suresh Kumar, chief technology officer of Walmart. “Combining Adobe’s strength in powering commerce experiences with our unmatched omni-customer expertise, we can accelerate other companies’ digital transformations.”
Anil Chakravarthy, executive vice president at Adobe, added: “We’re excited to collaborate with Walmart to help Adobe merchants expand their businesses to new channels and offer shopping experiences that increase their competitiveness and fit well with shifting consumer behaviours in an increasingly digital economy.”
Walmart has continued to leverage technology, such as machine learning, cloud powered checkout and pick-up capabilities to offer more convenience and enhance the overall shopping experience for customers.
Each week, approximately 220 million customers and members visit around 10,500 Walmart stores and clubs under 48 banners in 24 countries and ecommerce web sites. With 2021 revenue of $559bn, Walmart employs 2.2 million people worldwide.