Amazon must get ready to face serious competition as Walmart plans to get into voice-activated shopping space. However, the retail chain won’t be venturing into the tech space alone and will be helped by Google. Walmart, the world’s largest retail chain on Wednesday, August 23, stated that it was working closely with Google to develop and launch its voice-activated shopping feature.
With this upcoming feature, consumers would be able to shop for anything under the sun, from laundry items to toys, through the Google Home smart speaker. The feature will be released to the public in late September.
Voice-activated shopping coming soon
In an attempt to extend the reach of Google Home, the Mountain View-based company has struck this deal with Walmart. The feature will bring personalized shopping experience to the consumer’s doorstep. It also works well for Walmart, as it competes with Amazon’s dominance in the retail market with the help of its own Echo smart speaker.
Marc Lore, the chief executive of Walmart, stated that the retail chain’s venture into the voice-activated shopping space was necessary as it was becoming a part of daily shopping behavior. With the growth in popularity of smart speakers, the ability to use them for voice-activated shopping is becoming a part of people’s lives.
The executive also stated that the collaboration with Google is fruitful as the tech firm comes with developed AI and natural language processing abilities. In terms of personalization, Lore shared that with the roll out of this capability, Google Home will be able to understand the type and brand of items the need, even if a user says generic terms such as cheese, bread, or milk.
Google and Walmart looking to rival Amazon
Following the launch of the massively popular Echo, Google rolled out shopping capabilities for its smart speaker in February this year. Google Home allows people to use their voice to place orders from more than 40 retailers such as Costco, Target, and more. However, given that the Echo was launched in 2014, it had a significant lead in the market.
Walmart, on the other hand, is trying to close the online profit gap between itself and Amazon. Although the retailer dominates the grocery market in the United States and has the largest number of brick and mortar stores, it is still behind Amazon when it comes to online shopping. Regardless of its new shipping strategy in terms of online shopping, the retailer had to collaborate and form new partnerships, if it wanted to have an edge in the online marketing segment.
Whether the Google and Walmart partnership can throw the gauntlet to Amazon remains to be seen. For now, it seems that Amazon can rest easy.
