This Retailer Wants to Deliver Your Groceries Directly To Your Fridge
It’s pretty easy to outsource your grocery shopping these days, with everyone from Instacart to AmazonFresh to plenty of supermarket chains offering delivery of your pantry staples and perishables. Though one major retailer wants to take it a step further. Several steps, actually—directly to your kitchen where they’ll put everything away for you.
Business Insider reports that today, Walmart announced a partnership with smart lock startup August Home that allows the retailer to enter your house and deliver groceries right to your fridge. The test is happening in a select number of households with August Home devices that have opted in to the program.
In a blog post, Sloan Eddleston, VP Walmart eCommerce Strategy & Business Operations says:
[S]omeone else does the shopping for you AND puts it all away. Clearly this adds more convenience to the day-to-day, but it makes the unexpected easier, too. Imagine planning a last-minute get-together and having everything you need to entertain already waiting for you inside your fridge. Or maybe you think during lunch at work that you’d like to surprise your spouse by making dinner, but don’t have time to run to the store. In the future, you could order on Walmart.com and start cooking minutes after you walk through the door.
Eddleston also describes the logistics of how deliveries will work. Drivers are given a one time access code that will unlock the August Home smart lock if no one answers the door. The homeowner gets a notification that the delivery is happening, and has the option to watch it on the August security cameras in real time if they choose. The delivery driver puts packages in the entryway and groceries in the fridge, while the smart lock locks automatically behind them.
“These tests are a natural evolution of what Walmart is all about – an obsession in saving our customers not just money but also time, making our customers’ lives easier in the process,” Eddleston says. “What might seem novel today could be the standard tomorrow. This may not be for everyone – and certainly not right away – but we want to offer customers the opportunity to participate in tests today and help us shape what commerce will look like in the future.”
What do you think? Is in-fridge delivery cool or creepy? Tell us in the comments…