Walmart Aggressively Challenges Amazon With Google Partnership

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Move uses voice activated ordering to target online customers.

Walmart wants to make online ordering even easier for its customers. The discount retail chain has announced a new partnership with Google that will allow shoppers to select hundreds of thousands of items for voice shopping via Google Assistant. According to a blog post by Marc Lore, president and CEO of Walmart U.S. eCommerce, this is the largest number of items currently offered by any retailer using the platform.

"When it comes to voice shopping, we want to make it as easy as possible for our customers. That's why it makes sense for us to team up with Google," stated Lore. To use the new feature, customers will be able to place orders simply by speaking it out loud through the Google Assistant app or the voice-activated speaker Google Home.

The new partnership will leverage Walmart’s 4,700 U.S. stores and its wide fulfillment network in order “to create customer experiences that don’t currently exist within voice shopping anywhere else, including choosing to pick up an order in store (often for a discount) or using voice shopping to purchase fresh groceries across the country,” Lore explained.

Walmart has also integrated its Easy Reorder feature into Google Express, enabling the retailer “to deliver highly personalized shopping recommendations based on customers’ previous purchases, including those made in Walmart stores and on Walmart.com.” Customers just need to link their Walmart account to Google express to access this feature.

Lore asserted, “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.”