Wal-Mart Delivery Service Idea Has Customers Shipping to Other Online Buyers, New Method Considered
Wal-Mart might be putting its customers to work in an effort to save big money on the transportation costs of shipping products purchased online, according to Yahoo.
Wal-Mart could begin participating in a growing practice called "crowd sourcing." Online customers tell the store where they live and have the option of delivering other products to customers who are on their route home while receiving discounts on their own purchases.
Wal-Mart said they'd like to begin shipping products that are ordered online directly from their stores, which would give them a leg up on competitors that have no physical locations like Amazon. They began testing this method with 25 locations currently shipping goods directly from the store, and that number could jump to 50 this year.
Wal-Mart executives indicated that this concept is merely in the planning stages, but it's possible that changes could happen in the near future. Jeff McAllister, senior vice president of Wal-Mart U.S. Innovations, said, "This is at the brain-storming stage, but it's possible in a year or two."
Chief executive of Wal-Mart.com in the United States Joel Anderson concurred and told Reuters, "I see a path to where this is crowd-sourced."
Matt Nemer, a retail analyst at Wells Fargo Securities, sees big problems with Wal-Mart's plan. He cited reliability as a major issue with crowd sourcing and said online shoppers may never receive their packages due to theft or fraud.
"Regular customers also are not insured drivers such as UPS or FedEx deliverers. You are comfortable with a FedEx or UPS truck in your driveway, but what about a stranger knocking on your door?" Nemer said.
Zipments, a company based on crowd sourcing, allows anyone over the age of 18 with a texting-enabled phone and a PayPal account to bid for the opportunity to deliver goods for companies. While it began as purely crowd sourcing, Zipments now heavily screens drivers before allowing them to be part of the network.
Garrick Pohl, the founder of Zipments, said, "Zipments now helps people get all these things set up before allowing them to deliver goods." He added that he thinks establishing a similar system would be a huge boon to Wal-Mart.
"It's a great solution for large retailers like Wal-Mart," Pohl said. "We'd like to see them move quicker, but it's great that they are considering it."
