Walmart InHome Delivery is creepy, but puts your groceries right in the fridge

Walmart has announced a bold new initiative this morning that will bring grocery delivery from the retail giant to a whole new level. Walmart InHome Delivery will give workers access to your home, allowing them to put your food directly into the fridge without shoppers even having to be in the house. There are a lot of questions, and rightly so, about security and keeping all parties involved safe along the way. Walmart looks to alleviate these concerns by outfitting delivery personnel with body cameras. Like Amazon’s Key service, shoppers will be able to monitor progress via an app whether at home or on-the-go. There’s a lot of moving pieces here, but for the brave at heart, you’ll be able to have Walmart delivery your groceries straight to the fridge. Head below for more.

Walmart InHome Delivery: A taste of the future…

Grocery delivery is hardly a new thing. Amazon has been rapidly expanding its Whole Foods offerings across the county since the two joined forces. But what Walmart is announcing today is a complete departure from its curbside grocery pickup in favor of a much more personal, albeit risky, approach to making your grocery shopping easier.

If you’ve used Walmart’s curbside grocery pickup before, the first half of the process will be familiar. Shoppers will place an order on the Walmart app as usual, marking down preferred groceries and the like. When the order is completely ready at Walmart, a delivery person from the local store will drive to your home.

Walmart will then use “smart entry technology and a proprietary, wearable camera” to enter your home. Details on how this will work, if additional hardware is needed at your house, and a variety of other questions are still up in the air. Amazon answers this question by having its Key hardware installed at shoppers’ homes.

Walmart InHome Delivery is set to roll out to customers this fall. It promises availability for over half a million shoppers in Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Vero Beach, FL at launch.

gadgetnewsonline’ Take

Wow, there are a lot of concerns here. Grocery pickup and even delivery is one thing. But having a stranger come into your home and put groceries directly into your fridge is another level of intimacy that I don’t think most shoppers are ready for. I realize this is a service offered in many larger cities, but for other areas, this will be a significant leap of faith. Not to mention, there are a number of safety concerns as well. The arms race between Amazon and Walmart is on; the question is, who will make the most mistakes along the way?

Source: Walmart

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