Another big move in the rapidly consolidating market for home grocery delivery. Walmart will start home delivery in the Atlanta area through a new partnership with DoorDash.
As noted in previous coverage of food and grocery delivery, the Walmart/DoorDash relationship involves a complicated process that includes Walmart staff assembling the order, coordinating with DoorDash drivers to pickup and deliver, and a Walmart-branded delivery experience. DoorDash’s services are treated purely as a commodity added to the process, which minimizes the potential to capture feedback from consumers.
The next evolution of logistics and service management software needs to integrate the people doing the work into this process to build meaningful engagements with consumers. A driver could, for example, ask the customer to check the order. As they do, the driver might collect comments, such as “I forgot to order cheddar cheese” or “These peaches are bruised” for use in follow-up.
Not everyone who orders groceries will be at home when the delivery arrives, certainly, but if Walmart wants to find upselling opportunities, it needs to empower every layer of the delivery infrastructure and service providers with simple apps to capture situational and personalization data to improve the efficiency, satisfaction, and margins.