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Walmart offers frozen meal kits sold in stores under the Great Value brand as well. But Carol Spieckerman, a retail consultant and president of Spiecker- man Retail, said the company's trial with Takeout Kits and Home Chef is another example of the dynamics taking place in retail. She said platform partnerships that link smaller companies to larger ones with the potential to drive sales are ris- ing. A meal kit company being listed on Walmart's website offers additional exposure. There also has been rapid expansion of online marketplaces as retailers add third-party sellers to their websites to at- tract consumers. WalMart has been able to quickly grow its online assortment to more than 70 million items over the past couple of years with an increase of third-party sellers. "Although products have been the focus of these alliances up to now, solu- tions and services will be the next wave," Spieckerman said. "In this case, meal kits represent a bit of a hybrid between products and solutions. The partnership drives scale for Takeout Kit and Home Chef and allows Wal-Mart to reach out to new customers through partnership rather than outright acquisition." Some meal kit companies have en- dured rocky times recently, including Blue Apron's struggles around its ini- tial public offering. But there's little risk in carving out online space to meal kit companies for Wal-Mart, which collects a commission fee from sales. Lake con- firmed her company will handle fulfill- ment for Takeout Kit orders. Takeout Kit offers a variety of in- ternational meals, including Thai Crab Curry and German Beer Garden Spatzle. The meal kits range from $32 to $35 on Walmart.com. Home Chef is selling its meal kit box- es, which contain two or three meals. The boxes include recipes like garlic- and lemon-crusted salmon, crispy Di- jon chicken and bone-in pork chop with maple butter. The prices of the multi- meal boxes range from $39.80 to $79.60, according to Walmart.com. Like Lake, a spokesman for Home Chef, said the company believes there are "opportunities for collaboration" as the meal kit industry evolves. Consumers can find products from both companies by searching "meal kits" on Walmart.com. Lake anticipates a more dedicated page online — with the possibility of additional participants — as Walmart moves forward. We Are A Family Owned And Operated Independent - Assisted Living Level Two, and Memory Care Community. 2300 SE 28th Street | Bentonville | 479.273.9969 www.themeadowsinbentonville.com and Mem and Mem 2300 SE 28th Str 5% Discount for Veterans! Specializing in Lingerie & Adult Novelties 479-802-6223 3600 SE Guess Who Drive (Between Big Whiskey's and Guess Who?) Start Your Fantasies Here! Find us on Facebook (cupidslingeriebentonville) for upcoming events 479.877.3227 214 W. 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Walmart first moved to its current home office in 1971, when founder Sam Walton recognized the company had outgrown its space in downtown Ben- tonville. McMillon said in his note to employ- ees that as the company continued to grow over the years, the home office footprint followed as well. But it did so without a "holistic long-term plan." Headquarters v Continued from Page 18 The company acquired e-commerce retailers like Bonobos and ModCloth last year and is rapidly expanding ser- vices such as online grocery pickup and grocery delivery. Walmart is also in the process of installing automated pickup towers to several hundred stores to im- prove the convenience for customers. Neil Stern, a senior partner with re- tail consultant firm McMillan-Doolittle, said earlier this year it was "incredibly important" for Walmart to improve the functionality of its website as well to remove any barriers that could drive customers to rivals like Amazon.com. "For all the money that Walmart has spent, they don't have a great website," Stern said. "They need one. Can you quantify the impact of an improved web- site? Yes … There's a lot of opportunity to optimize what they're doing." Keith Anderson, a senior vice presi- dent of strategy and insight for e-com- merce analytics firm Profitero, said one of Amazon's e-commerce successes has been its ability to identify points of fric- tion and then eliminate them. He point- ed to the online giant's one-click trans- actions as an example and said there is pressure on Walmart to deliver a unique website experience that is attractive to customers as well. "Site experience and how quickly things load, how findable they are, how much friction there is as users try to search, browse, add to cart and checkout, is a big deal," Anderson said in February. A Walmart spokesman said it's not clear when Walmart.com underwent its last major redesign. But Jordan Sweet- nam, Walmart's senior vice president for customer experience and product, said the retailer understood the need for changes after getting feedback from customers as well as current and pro- spective brands. He said he believes the new Walmart. com, when fully unveiled, will reflect the feedback. "One of the things we started to hear from our customers was, functionally, the website allowed them to complete the missions they needed to do like buy diapers and paper towels and Cheerios," Sweetnam said. "But the site wasn't clean and simple. It wasn't driving inspiration. So we're excited to revamp that look and create a deeper, personal connection." Website v Continued from Page 24 Meal kits v Continued from Page 24