Walmart Announces InHome, A Delivery Service Where They'll Bring Groceries Straight To Your Fridge
In an announcement on Friday, June 7, Walmart president and CEO Marc Lore revealed that the retailer will be offering a new service everywhere by Fall 2020: They'll deliver groceries straight to your refrigerator. As in, a Walmart worker will come to your home, open your fridge, and place your just-purchased cartons of milk and bunches of grapes straight in there. The store already offers same day grocery pick-up or delivery, and this, they say, is their logical next step. You probably have a lot of questions, so let's get straight to how this whole thing works.
This new, and quite extra, delivery service is aptly called "InHome." According to some FAQs on the service website's landing page, a test launch will begin this fall in Pittsburgh; Kansas City, MO; and Vero Beach, FL, with expansion to even more cities in the works. You'll place a grocery order as you normally would and select InHome Delivery and a delivery date when you check out. The delivery people will be trained and vetted Walmart employees who've already worked at a local store for at least one year.
You can choose whether they enter your home through the front door or the garage; there will be a smart device that enables one-time access during the delivery window. In a (somewhat creepy) effort to make you feel secure about your home, the delivery employees will be equipped with a wearable camera, so you can watch the entire grocery drop-off from start to finish. (No word on whether or not you can communicate that they're putting your eggs on the wrong shelf while this is happening...)
Now about the cost: The groceries themselves will be priced the same as if you bought them in-store, but there will be a delivery fee. Walmart's remaining mum about it; their site states they'll announce more about cost this fall.
This is all, apparently, an effort for Walmart to bring you a sense of Fridgetopia...which is a word they invented meaning "the feeling your refrigerator gets when it’s stocked with everything you need." I mean, surely there are ways to achieve Fridgetopia without a stranger entering your home. Then again, it's 2019. Why would we buck a service that let's us be even lazier than we're already becoming?
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