On your way home from Walmart, would you mind making a stop to deliver a package?
Reuters reports that Walmart is planning to have store customers to deliver orders for online customers.
The half trillion dollar company is looking to crowdsource the delivery of packages.
Reuters said the plan is at the very initial stage, and many legal and privacy boundaries would have to be considered before full execution.
This concept isn’t anything new, as a number of startups and services such as TaskRabbit, Stuff2Send, Zipments, Postmates and Zaarly are already on it.
However, the delivery plan is the first from a retailer as large as Walmart.
If executed, the transportation costs for the retail giant would decrease significantly, as they could ask customers in their store to deliver the items to online shoppers who live in the route to their homes.
In return, Walmart would give gas expenses to store customers as a discount on their total shopping bill, which would be cheaper for Walmart when compared to FedEx delivery charges.
The advantage for online shoppers – items might be delivered just hours after ordering them online. But the delivery person may just be your neighbor.
The crowsourced delivery could be executed in a year or two, according to senior vice president of innovations at Walmart, Jeff McAllister.
Would you be willing to make deliveries for a discount?
Would you be willing to have neighbors deliver your Walmart purchases to you… or would that be weird?
Let us know what you think in the comments section below!
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