Retail Intel Weekly: Walmart, Aldi & More

MASSWalmart revealed that Gatik’s multi-temperature "Autonomous Box Trucks" will go fully driverless on their two-mile route between a dark store and a Neighborhood Market in Bentonville. The partners early next year are also expanding the pilot to Louisiana “to test an even longer delivery route and a second use case — delivering items from a Supercenter to a Walmart pickup point, a designated location where customers can conveniently pick up their orders,” Tom Ward, SVP of customer product, Walmart U.S., wrote in a blog post, adding that the pilot in Louisiana will initially use a safety driver.Three Walmart locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area now offer Oak Street Health Community Clinics operated by Oak Street Health, a network of value-based primary care centers for adults on Medicare. The openings bring the number of Oak Street Health locations in Texas to eight.Walmart has announced deadlines to place orders for Christmas. The retailer says orders with two-day shipping should be placed by 2 p.m. on Dec. 19 to arrive in time for the holiday. One-day delivery orders should be placed by 2 p.m. on Dec. 21, and two-hour express delivery orders should be placed by 1 p.m. on Dec. 24.SUPERMARKETSAldi shoppers that have curbside orders scheduled for pickup between 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. from Dec. 18-20 will get a chance to have their groceries loaded into their cars by Santa Claus at select Chicago Aldi stores. Santa will also pose for a free car-side photo with customers, which they will receive digitally at the end of the experience. Aldi's curbside pickup is powered by Instacart and is available at 700 stores across 35 U.S. states.Publix has launched a new six-week program to support six Feeding America food banks in Florida with donations of pasta, canned vegetables, canned beans, cereal and boxed potatoes amid increasing demand, according to a press release from the retailer. The participating food banks collectively serve 46 counties in the state and include Feeding Northeast Florida, serving the Jacksonville metro area; Harry Chapin Food Bank, serving the Fort Myers metro area; and Feeding Tampa Bay, serving the Tampa metro area.This new program follows the program Publix launched in April to purchase surplus produce and milk from farmers impacted by the pandemic and deliver it directly to food banks. Publix expects to purchase and deliver more than 18 million pounds of produce and over 500,000 gallons of milk to Feeding America member food banks throughout the Southeast this year, including more than 7 million pounds of produce and more than 250,000 gallons of milk to the six Florida food banks receiving additional support this holiday season.AMAZONAmazon is offering an extended return window and accepting box-free, label-free returns at no charge across more than 500 Whole Foods Market stores as well as at additional locations including Amazon Books, Amazon 4-star, Amazon Fresh grocery stores, Amazon Go stores, UPS Store locations and Kohl's. The retailer says that most items shipped between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31 can be returned until Jan. 31, 2021.DRUGSTORESVerizon Business and Walgreens Boots Alliance have joined in a multi-year strategic partnership in which Verizon will deploy its Network as a Service (NaaS), a solution that will deliver an enhanced customer experience to more than 9,000 Walgreens and Duane Reade retail locations across the U.S. The foundation of the partnership is underpinned by the full breadth of Verizon’s assets including LTE, 5G and Verizon Media, which will enable Verizon to continuously offer the latest in technological and business process innovation. Verizon Business’ NaaS is an on-demand solution utilizing the latest connectivity, network and security technologies. The on-demand offering takes multiple technologies and delivers a single solution to customers to enable their digital transformation. As technology evolves, Walgreens will have the newest technology almost instantly and can focus on what matters to them most.

Retail Intel Weekly: Walmart, Aldi & More

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