Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/832311
4 NWA Democrat-Gazette Walmart Shareholders Thursday, June 1, 2017 Stephany Ponce scans the cooler holding eggs, picks up a carton and checks for cracks. Finding none, she gently places the carton in her basket and moves on to the next item on her list. Ponce fills several grocery lists daily not for herself, but in her role as a personal shopper at Wal-Mart. "I check expiration dates and look for damaged packages," she said recently at the store on Pleasant Crossing Boule- vard in Rogers. "We make sure we are giving customers the best product." Wal-Mart's personal shoppers are an integral part of the retailer's rapidly expanding online grocery program, said Ellen Martinez, regional e-commerce manager. Customers can shop online and pick up their order curbside in more than 100 markets and 600 stores nationwide. Martinez said the company is looking at adding 500 more stores to the program this year. Moving online Grocery pickup is not new for Wal-Mart. The company's first online ordering test started in 2011 in San Jose, Calif., before expanding to Denver in 2013. A 15,000-square-foot prototype opened at the intersection of Walton Boulevard and J Street in Bentonville in 2014. The site's only function is grocery pickup and is still in operation. Martinez, who once managed the Bentonville pickup store, said the stand- alone site continues to offer a unique perspective, but adding pickup locations at stores is a way to merge Wal-Mart's physical operations with the digital side of the business. A study by iVend Retail, an omni- channel retail management software vendor, reports 57.5 percent of all shop- pers use an omnichannel service, but only 31.6 percent describe it as being a smooth process. Omnichannel is when a shopper uses multiple methods of shop- ping, such as buying online or via the telephone and picking up in the store. "We have several tests going on," Martinez said. "We want to meet customer demand in every area." The iVend survey said 29.2 percent of customers said convenience was the biggest reason to shop online and pickup in a store. Convenience is what made Tabatha M i l l e r a l oya l Wa l - M a r t p i c k u p customer. The Fayetteville mother of three children ages 4 and younger started using the service as soon as she moved to Northwest Arkansas from the East Coast in 2015. "Literally, grocery pickup is one of my favorite things about Northwest Arkan- sas. My friends at home are so jealous," she said. The Millers use the service at least twice a week, and some months avoid having to step into a store, she said. "We can manager our grocery budget more efficiently. We are more inten- tional about our grocery shopping and spend $100 or less," she said. Ponce, who spent two years as a cashier before becoming a personal shopper about seven months ago, said the job has helped her be a better shop- per. "Before I worked with online grocery pickup I didn't think much about expi- ration dates," she said. She's also used the online service several times. "It saves so much time. It's quick and easy," she said. "I tell customers the benefits of pickup, so I thought I needed to try it." CliCk and buy Food Marketing Institute and Nielsen report in the "Digitally Engaged Food Shopper" analysis that 23 percent of American households buy food online. The report predicts that could reach 70 percent in 10 years, with 60 percent of those shoppers spending more than 25 percent of their food dollars online. "The grocery business truly is at a digital tipping point, where every aspect of the shopper's journey will soon be influenced by digital, and increasingly enabled by digital platforms," Chris Morley, president of U.S. Buy at Niel- sen, said in the report. The report says online grocery shopping could quintuple in the next 10 years, reaching $100 billion by 2025. CHRISTIE SWANSON NWA DemocrAt-GAzette WAL-MART RAPIDLy GROWING ONLINE GROCERy PROGRAM NWA DemocrAt-GAzette/J.T. WAMPLER Stephany Ponce of Springdale selects grocery items May 3 at Wal-Mart on Pleasant Grove in Rogers. Ponce is a personal shopper at the store, filling orders for pick-up. Pickup service picking up See PickuP, Page 6