Walmart stores will begin testing the deployment of robots to collect grocery items for online order fulfillment. According to an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the new robots are able to collect items about 10 times faster than a human worker. Walmart stores will undoubtedly benefit from not only faster collection times for items, but also from needing to hire fewer workers – particularly during peak seasons such as the end of year holidays. However, this could come at a cost of local communities where workers may find fewer retail jobs available as stores begin transitioning into an increasingly automated model.
Brick and mortar retail stores like Walmart have been struggling to compete against online-only heavy weights like Amazon in the online grocery business. Currently, Walmart offers a service where customers can place an order online and have the groceries either delivered to their home or to the store parking lot meaning customers don’t even need to get out of the car. While this can be a nice convenience for shoppers, it also comes with its own problems. For instance, keeping track of what’s in stock can be a difficult conundrum to solve. If robots are tasked with this duty, then they can keep better track of what is being sold and what is still available. This would mean fewer orders would need to be unfulfilled because an item is out of stock.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, retail analyst Sucharita Kodali illustrated the problem of online grocery orders, nothing that “The whole problem with picking inventory from the shelf is inventory is never where it’s supposed to be,” and that “fast-moving items are never there.”
Not Just Walmart Robots, Automation Is Slowly Taking Over
Walmart isn’t the only company looking to cut costs and increase efficiency by employing automation. Ford has recently invested in bipedal robots that can be used to move boxes in a warehouse or perhaps even to make last mile deliveries accompanied with driverless cars. Walmart itself already employs a fleet of robots in its retail stores. Specifically, they use a device called Bossa Nova that scans store shelves three times faster than humans can and alerts staff when an item is running low or when something is misplaced.
With retail companies forced to compete with players that don’t need to pay for and maintain retail space, it seems inevitable that they will try to cut costs so that they can compete. Reports suggest that the online grocery business is not particularly profitable right now. Retailers are still pursuing it so that they can hopefully lock customers into a routine once the business does become profitable. Perhaps automation is the missing link that will make online grocery businesses profitable. However, it could come at the cost of Walmart jobs – but to what extent, no one knows just yet.
