The Friday Report Blog: January 13th, 2022

Walmart Partners with Salesforce for Fulfillment Tech, Delivery Services

Walmart and Salesforce have announced a deal that will bring the big-box retailer’s store fulfillment technology and local delivery services to other retailers that utilize the Salesforce Commerce Cloud.

The companies expect Walmart GoLocal, the retailers same-day delivery service, and Walmart Commerce Technologies Store Assist, to be available for businesses to use through the Salesforce AppExchange sometime in the spring.

The two companies say that their omnichannel service partnership will help retailers all over the world serve their customer better by providing improved access to more cost-efficient order fulfillment and delivery solutions. By collaborating, the companies will enable an ease of access that can drive activity for the companies as well as competition for users.

GoLocal was first implemented in 2021 and has surpassed 1 million deliveries since that time. Since 2019, Store Assists has enabled Walmart to fulfill over 830 million orders across 4,700 stores.

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Amazon Expands “Buy with Prime” Service to Sellers Across the U.S.

E-commerce giant Amazon has announced that the company will expand its “Buy with Prime” delivery service to all U.S. merchants by January 31^st. This will enable Amazon Prime members to shop on any U.S. website and access Amazon Prime benefits such as free delivery and returns. The company first launched this expanded service in April 2022, which was by invitation-only.

With the offering, Amazon will handle payment, order processing, storage, packing, delivery, and returns of sellers not in the Amazon Marketplace. In addition to the extended service, the company has also launched Reviews by Amazon. This service will enable sellers to display ratings and reviews from Amazon customers on their own websites, at no added cost. Amazon has stated that their Buy with Prime program has shown a 25% increase in shopper conversion.

E-commerce platform BigCommerce has stated that the company will offer a code-free version of Buy with Prime to merchants utilizing its platform.

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Walgreens Opens Ninth Micro-Fulfillment Center

Walgreens continues to struggle with The Great Resignation especially as it relates to hiring new pharmacists. As a result, the company has opened its ninth automated micro-fulfillment center. These facilities utilize robots to eliminate certain repetitive tasks and excess inventory from the prescription fulfillment process. This results in reduced pharmacist workloads.  The company hopes that the reduced workloads will attract newly graduated healthcare workers.

Walgreens automated facilities currently support over 3,000 of its pharmacies, filling roughly 60% of its prescriptions. The company has stated that it will expand its number of automated facilities to 22 to support the fulfillment of other retail products in the coming future.

Big-box retailers Walmart and Albertsons have also implemented the use of micro-fulfillment centers in their supply chain management strategies to scale e-commerce operations.

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