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posted by chromas on Saturday July 28 2018, @05:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the pickup-artists dept.

Walmart To Test Self-Driving Cars For Grocery Pickup Service

The future is here and soon it will be toting grocery shoppers around Phoenix. Walmart and Waymo — formerly Google's self-driving car project — announced on Wednesday the launch of a pilot program that will allow consumers to make their grocery pickups with the help of an autonomous vehicle.

The plan is simple. Participants in Waymo's "early riders" program will be able to take a driverless shuttle service to and from Walmart whenever they purchase groceries from Walmart.com using the retailer's online grocery pickup service.

Current "early riders" will receive incentives to participate in the pilot and the rides will be provided with no additional cost, Molly Blakeman, a Walmart spokesperson, said in an email to NPR. "Since the pilot is part of our Grocery Pickup program, personal shoppers pick customers' orders and bring them right out to the car ... in this case a Waymo self-driving car," she said.

Also at NYT and AZCentral.

Related: Google/Waymo Announces Testing of Self-Driving Trucks in Atlanta, Georgia


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  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday July 29 2018, @04:20AM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Sunday July 29 2018, @04:20AM (#714224) Journal

    Kroger already has a service called ClickList where they do the same thing, so I'm sure the concept has been reviewed by now

    Oh the concept has been reviewed, and ~85% of consumers said they won't buy groceries online because they want to pick out items in-person [qz.com].

    It's the biggest thing that makes perishable grocery stores different from just about every other trend in retail moving online.

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