Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, and Google, the internet's predominant search engine, are teaming up in an attempt to challenge Amazon's growing dominance in online shopping. The venture, announced early Wednesday, marries Google's hands-free voice activated Google Home program to Wal-Mart's vast network of US stores to allow customers to order groceries and other items to be home delivered through Google Express.
The initiative is a direct rebuttal to Alexa, Amazon's popular artificial intelligence program, and comes as the online retailer prepared to swallow Whole Foods Market in a transaction that will exponentially expand Amazon's presence in brick-and-mortar stores and is expected to lead to home delivery of food through Amazon's subscription prime program.
On Wednesday, Whole Foods shareholders voted to support the $13.7 billion takeover by Amazon. Scott Kessler, a CFRA analyst who covers Google parent Alphabet, said the announcement made sense for both companies, filling in a gap in Wal-Mart's technology profile with the addition of voice-ordering capacity and potentially boosting Google's standing in e-commerce. "What seems to be happening is a lot of the companies are coming together to offer an alternative to Amazon and this is one example of that," Kessler told AFP in an interview.
Wal-Mart Stores head of e-commerce Marc Lore said the initiative will permit customers to voice order hundreds of thousands of items beginning in late September. Wal-Mart plans to integrate its "easy reorder" service into the program, which allows customers to repeat orders of household staples and other frequent purchases with a few fast clicks.