The largest retailer, and the strongest search engine in the world, announced their first-ever partnership this week. The Google is all set to provide Walmart the online platform to sell its products, making them available at Google Express. Google Express is Google’s online marketplace and is voice activated using Artificial Intelligence.
The voice shopping is becoming more mainstream and part of the everyday shopping behavior. Walmart believes that Google’s investment in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence will help make voice-activated shopping even more popular.
Walmart has more stores than any other retailer in the U.S. grocery market, and the partnership with Google means people can shout out generic items like milk, bread and cheese, and the Google Assistant will show the exact size and brand of the customer’s choice. This partnership will bring the capability of buying thousands of low-priced products – everything from laundry detergent to Legos, through your voice with Google Assistant or Google Express or the app.
“When it comes to voice shopping, we want to make it as easy as possible for our customers. We know this means being compared side-by-side with other retailers, and we think that’s the way it should be.”- Marc Lore, Walmart’s head of e-commerce
It is also said that Walmart and Google’s partnership may compete with the world’s largest online shopping site, Amazon. Amazon charges $99 per year for the Prime membership, and Google Express has removed its $95 per year membership too. Now, all stores on the platform will have their own free shipping threshold. The policy of Walmart will be applicable as per its own site, and every order of over $35 will get two-day shipping free.
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The customers who already have their accounts on Walmart can link them to Google to get personalized shopping results based on online in-store Walmart purchases.
