Retail Channels
12 January
Walmart launches on Salesforce app store with delivery, fulfillment
Walmart wants to provide omnichannel technology it developed in-house to other retailers.

A Walmart GoLocal delivery. (Courtesy photo)
Walmart wants to provide omnichannel technology it developed in-house to other retailers.
A Walmart GoLocal delivery. (Courtesy photo)
Walmart is known for its marketplace of consumer goods. Now, it is setting up shop on a B2B software marketplace as it seeks to work with other retailers.
The news: Walmart will make services for pickup and local delivery through Salesforce’s app store. The release from Walmart Commerce Technologies is a move to expand use of the capabilities that Walmart developed in-house to power omnichannel operations, and grow a business line as a vendor to other companies in the process.
What will be available? Walmart is making the following apps available in the Salesforce AppExchange:
Key quotefrom Anshu Bhardwaj, senior vice president for technology strategy and commercialization at Walmart Global Technology: “Through this partnership, retailers can leverage the same innovative and scalable technologies that power Walmart’s pickup and delivery experiences. The same technology that powers Store Assist has enabled Walmart to fulfill over 830 million orders across over 4,700 Walmart stores. Together with Salesforce, retailers can scale their business and deliver the personalized, convenient experiences shoppers expect.”
Let’s break down the key parts of this partnership:
Omnichannel imperative: We’ll keep repeating it this year: The return to in-person shopping in 2022 didn’t cancel out ecommerce. Rather, it underscored how physical and digital have to operate together going forward. In-store fulfillment, BOPIS and local delivery from stores are just a few of the operations through which this blend will play out. The partnership underscored how Walmart has been expanding aggressively in omnichannel. The GoLocal service launched in 2021. By 2022, it had topped 1 million delivered and was on track to reach 5,000 pickup locations.
Walmart as tech company: Building enterprise tech and launching it on an app store. These are typically the tasks of software companies, and Walmart is now among them. Working at massive scale, Walmart is an operations juggernaut. As it sought to leverage its stores while building out ecommerce, it built the technology that connected those operations, and solved problems that were unique to an organization of its size at a time of massive change in consumer behavior during the pandemic. Having pushed out ahead, Walmart now sees opportunity to offer its capabilities to other retailers. It stood up the Walmart Commerce Technologies division last year to bring these capabilities to market.
As Bhardwaj told us in April, “We have a world class organization including technology, product and operations teams that we believe, combined with our retail strength and scale, will allow us to build a mutually beneficial flywheel that unlocks new revenue for Walmart while improving the customer experience for everyone.”
Salesforce ecosystem: There is always lots of discussion about consumer app stores from Apple and Android, as well as Shopify’s app store for commerce technology. Less is written about Salesforce’s AppExchange, but there probably should be more. It provides complementary apps to Salesforce’s cloud-based and CRM technology, creating a B2B software ecosystem. Like the other app stores, it opens up access to technology that can make Salesforce more valuable, and provides entrepreneurial opportunities for developers. Launched in 2017, the AppExchange crossed 10 million downloads in early 2022. It also includes consultants that can provide services around the apps offered. While app stores often bring to mind small startups launched by a single developer, Walmart’s entrance shows there is room even for the largest companies to offer their technology there, as well.
Commerce complement: The partnership between Walmart and Salesforce leaves room for the two companies to expand their commerce capabilities by working together. Salesforce provides tools to help retailers operate their stores across channels, and now Walmart is bringing its own technology into that mix. An announcement notes that the fulfillment and delivery services from Walmart can be used alongside Salesforce’s store management solution, called CommerceCloud, and order management. This means Walmart will also work with more brands and retailers, potentially helping to gather data that will fuel its own retail media. In turn, this can help the brands that already sell and advertise at Walmart. Further demand for its delivery network can also help to grow that business further.
“With the combined power of Walmart and Salesforce, retailers can drive success with best-in-class technology to advance their omnichannel capabilities, drive efficiency and ensure that every purchase quickly gets into the hands of the shopper – no matter where they are," Garf said.
Ask Instacart answers prompts with personalized recommendations.
A pair of recent launches from Instacart highlight how the grocery ecommerce company is integrating two of the key emerging areas of technology into its offerings: Generative AI and marketplaces.
Let’s take a look:
Instacart is seeking to harness generative AI to create a more personalized shopping experience.
A new tool called Ask Instacart that is launching this week is designed to allow customers to type in questions about specific recipes or general recommendations for an occasion. Embedded in the search bar, Ask Instacart also provides personalized questions to be asked by customers. In addition to specific items, it provides information about food preparation, product attributes and dietary considerations.
For those eying how generative AI will play a role in the shopping experience, Ask Instacart shows how search can be transformed into a place for discovery. Instacart is aiming to provide answers to the more open-ended questions that people would naturally ask, not just simply provide info in response to a question that has one answer. It shared the following sample prompts:
The tool is also showing the way for generative AI to integrate with retail media. Ask Instacart is designed to integrate with a brand's sponsored products campaign, so that the answers to questions that match consumer needs can also provide a way for brands to stand out.
To create the tool, Instacart combined the language understanding of ChatGPT with its own AI models. It added in catalog data from 80,000 retail partner locations around the country, which together have more than one billion shoppable items.
Beyond mission: Ecommerce marketplaces have honed a shopping experience where it’s easy to find what you’re looking for. But if shoppers want to happen upon something they didn’t know they needed, social media or the store is still the best place to visit. Instacart is showing how generative AI can make discovery a marketplace function. It also signals that advertising will come to generative AI by way of retail media. Going forward, the growth of discovery could make retail media more valuable as a tool for advertising that raises brand awareness, not just lower-funnel conversions.
Instacart will power a new virtual convenience store for the grocery chain Aldi.
Aldi Express will feature 2,000 of the most-shopped Aldi items, ranging from prepared food and snacks to grocery staples.
Drawing on 2,100 Aldi locations around the country, items will be delivered as fast as 30 minutes, the companies said.
“Through ALDI Express, we’re making shopping more convenient so you can satisfy a craving or get a missing ingredient in minutes,” said Scott Patton, VP of National Buying at ALDI, in a statement. “Together with Instacart, we’ll continue to find ways to innovate and make the online grocery experience even more effortless and accessible.”
Aldi began offering delivery via Instacart in 2017, and has since expanded services to include pickup as well as alcohol delivery.
Aldi’s marketplace moment? While Aldi previously offered delivery, making the assortment available through a virtual store offers the opportunity to create a marketplace for its goods. With the virtual store, it will more closely resemble DoorDash and Uber Eats, which have been expanding their grocery assortment. With a marketplace, additional revenue opportunities could open up for the grocer, such as advertising through retail media.