New service
Google and Walmart are teaming up to offer voice activated shopping in the US, entering a market currently dominated by Amazon.
From next month the retail giants customers in the US will be able to order their shopping using the voice-activated Google Assistant platform.
The partnership allows Walmart to challenge Amazon’s dominance of the voice shopping market. Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa already allows customer to shop directly from the online retailer using their voice.
Marc Lore President and CEO of Walmart e-commerce said in a blog post that hundreds of thousands of items will be offered for voice shopping via Google Assistant – “the largest number of items currently offered by a retailer through the platform.”
He added that the launch was just the beginning and that “Next year, we will also leverage our 4,700 U.S. stores and our fulfillment network to create customer experiences that don’t currently exist within voice shopping anywhere else.”
He said: “Our new voice shopping capability, coupled with our core value proposition, including free two-day shipping and the Pickup Discount, will give our customers a compelling new way to get what they need at low prices.
“We will continue to focus on creating new opportunities to simplify people’s lives and help them shop in ways they’ve not yet imagined.”
Walmart is the world’s largest retailer and owns Asda in the UK. In the announcement there was no mention about whether the new service would be extended outside the US.
Leave a Comment