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Google Assistant is ready to take shoppers’ Walmart orders

New service creates personalized shopping basket for Walmart customers

Russell Redman

April 2, 2019

3 Min Read
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This month, Walmart will enable customers to order groceries by voice on any device with the Google Assistant.

Through the service, called Walmart Voice Order, shoppers will be able to make purchases by saying, “OK Google, talk to Walmart” to their device, and the Google Assistant will add items to their Walmart Grocery cart. Walmart identifies the items that customers request through their order history, and the service learns their preferences as they make more voice transactions. (See the video here.)

Walmart_Voice_Order_service_customer.PNG copy.pngTom Ward, senior vice president of digital operations at Walmart U.S., introduced Walmart Voice Order in a blog post on Tuesday.

“The more you use it, the better we’ll get,” Ward explained in the posting. “For example, if a customer says, ‘Add milk to my cart,” we’ll make sure to add the specific milk the customer buys regularly. Instead of saying, ‘One gallon of 1% Great Value organic milk,’ they’ll simply say one word: ‘milk.’”

Plans call for Walmart Voice Order to roll out to more customers over the next several weeks, Ward said. He noted that because Google Assistant is available on more than a billion devices — such as smart displays like Google Home Hub, smart speakers, Android mobile phones, iPhones and smart watches — customers can manage their shopping carts at home or on the go.

Related:Walmart, Google strike shopping partnership

“We know when using voice technology, customers like to add items to their cart one at a time over a few days, not complete their shopping for the week all at once. So this capability aligns with the way customers shop,” Ward said. “It’s cross-platform, which means customers can use any device utilizing Google Assistant, and allows for items to go directly to a customer’s shopping cart, making this capability one of a kind. We’re kicking off the work with Google, adding others to the mix as time goes on.”

Walmart Voice Order stems from a partnership that Walmart and Google announced in August 2017 to enable the Bentonville, Ark.-based retail giant to offer hundreds of thousands of items for voice shopping via Google Assistant. The effort focused on creating the ability for customers to build a highly personalized shopping basket from recommendations based on their prior purchases of everyday essentials, including the integration of Walmart’s Easy Reorder feature into the Google Express shopping service.

“When it comes to voice shopping, we want to make it as easy as possible for our customers. That’s why it makes sense for us to team up with Google,” Marc Lore, president and CEO of Walmart eCommerce, said when the partnership with Mountain View, Calif.-based Google was announced. “They’ve made significant investments in natural language processing and artificial intelligence to deliver a powerful voice shopping experience.”

Related:In online grocery, Amazon and Walmart at ‘genius’ level

For its 2019 fiscal year ended in January, Walmart saw e-commerce sales climb 40%. The company has driven transactions by enhancing the shopping experience on the front end through services like voice ordering as well as on the back end by bolstering its online fulfillment capabilities. In grocery, Walmart expanded U.S. online delivery to about 800 stores and pickup to more than 2,100 locations during fiscal 2019. The retailer said it expects to have 1,600 delivery and 3,100 pickup locations by the end of fiscal 2020.

About the Author

Russell Redman

Senior Editor
Supermarket News

Russell Redman has served as senior editor at Supermarket News since April 2018, his second tour with the publication. In his current role, he handles daily news coverage for the SN website and contributes news and features for the print magazine, as well as participates in special projects, podcasts and webinars and attends industry events. Russ joined SN from Racher Press Inc.’s Chain Drug Review and Mass Market Retailers magazines, where he served as desk/online editor for more than nine years, covering the food/drug/mass retail sector. 

Russell Redman’s more than 30 years of experience in journalism span a range of editorial manager, editor, reporter/writer and digital roles at a variety of publications and websites covering a breadth of industries, including retailing, pharmacy/health care, IT, digital home, financial technology, financial services, real estate/commercial property, pro audio/video and film. He started his career in 1989 as a local news reporter and editor, covering community news and politics in Long Island, N.Y. His background also includes an earlier stint at Supermarket News as center store editor and then financial editor in the mid-1990s. Russ holds a B.A. in journalism (minor in political science) from Hofstra University, where he also earned a certificate in digital/social media marketing in November 2016.

Russell Redman’s experience:

Supermarket News - Informa
Senior Editor 
April 2018 - present

Chain Drug Review/Mass Market Retailers - Racher Press
Desk/Online Editor 
Sept. 2008 - March 2018

CRN magazine - CMP Media
Managing Editor
May 2000 - June 2007

Bank Systems & Technology - Miller Freeman
Executive Editor/Managing Editor
Dec. 1996 - May 2000

Supermarket News - Fairchild Publications
Financial Editor/Associate Editor
April 1995 - Dec. 1996 

Shopping Centers Today Magazine - ICSC 
Desk Editor/Assistant Editor
Dec. 1992 - April 1995

Testa Communications
Assistant Editor/Contributing Editor (Music & Sound Retailer, Post, Producer, Sound & Communications and DJ Times magazines)
Jan. 1991 - Dec. 1992 

American Banker/Bond Buyer
Copy Editor
Oct. 1990 - Jan. 1991 

This Week newspaper - Chanry Communications
Reporter/Editor
May 1989 - July 1990

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