In an effort to simplify its mobile shopping experience and appeal to a growing customer base looking for easy shopping solutions during the coronavirus pandemic, Walmart has combined its Walmart and Walmart Grocery apps into a single entity.
“We don’t ask customers to make two trips to the store, one for groceries and one for all the other things they need, so we shouldn’t ask them to visit two apps,” evp and chief customer officer Janey Whiteside said in a blog post.
The new app combines existing features such as store maps, an item finder, prescription refills and a digital payment option called Walmart Pay, along with some new capabilities.
The latter includes hundreds of thousands of additional time slots for grocery pickup, as well as reserved slots for seniors, first responders and customers with underlying medical conditions. The app also offers more information and notifications about pickup and delivery than before, but it wasn’t immediately clear what the new messaging includes.
The app, which is available for iOS and Android devices, allows eligible customers to choose Express Delivery, the two-hour service Walmart announced earlier this month for 160,000 items in categories such as food, consumables and general merchandise. The service will be available in 2,000 of its 4,750 U.S. locations.
Whiteside said existing grocery app users will find their information and carts transferred into the new app upon download and login.
The retailer announced its intent to merge the apps in March, with the phased rollout now complete. Since then, Whiteside said Walmart has seen in uptick in customers ordering general merchandise like toys or gardening tools when they shop for groceries with the new app.
https://www.adweek.com/retail/walmart-streamlines-mobile-shopping-with-a-new-app/