Walmart's outgoing e-commerce chief Marc Lore, who joined the retail behemoth after its $3.3 billion acquisition of Jet.com in 2016, says the next revolution in e-commerce will be direct to the shopper's refrigerator and keeping it stocked.
In a conversation with Yahoo Finance on Friday, Lore highlighted that Walmart (WMT), the world's largest retailer, has begun leveraging its biggest competitive advantage — its store fleet — to fulfill its e-commerce orders.
"I think the evolution of and building that muscle is to go directly to the refrigerator, and eventually get to a point where people are just kept in stock of the things that they want, and I think Walmart is uniquely positioned to be able to pull that off. And I think that'll be a big revolution," Lore told Yahoo Finance.
Critical to Walmart's e-commerce playbook of “playing offense” is leveraging its "unique assets" of more than 4,700 stores in the U.S. Approximately 90% of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a Walmart. Lore noted that Walmart has leaned into last-mile delivery from its supercenter stores.
At the 2019 shareholders meeting, Walmart debuted its InHome Delivery service, in which a “vetted” associate acts as a personal shopper by delivering grocery orders to private homes using smart lock technology. The service is available in select markets. This spring, Walmart will test a refrigerated smart box technology in partnership with HomeValet for participating customers in Bentonville, Arkansas, to receive grocery orders at any time, even when no one is home.
As companies like Uber and Airbnb increasingly get people comfortable with riding in someone's car or sleeping in someone else's home, it helps get people comfortable with the idea of someone delivering groceries into a refrigerator.
"I think we're gonna sort of ride the coattails of those that have come before us in that area," Lore said.
Another area where Lore sees room to run is “conversational commerce,” in which people will use voice and text to get what they want, including recommendations.
The 49-year-old tech entrepreneur, who transformed Walmart's e-commerce business in less than five years, will retire on Jan. 31 and remain as a strategic adviser through September.
Julia La Roche is a correspondent for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.
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