Walmart 共享經濟和眾包模式

Walmart繼上回推出店內置物櫃讓顧客可以先線上訂購再到店取貨，現在更打算發展移動式銷售鍊，將傳統實體大型店面變成小型日用消費品貨車，計畫租用顧客的車內空間並雇用顧客，提供更多顧客方便的消費。

美國Walmart.com執行長Joel Anderson表示：「運輸通路在未來會是眾包(註)的營運模式。」另外一位執行長更補充，此項計畫能在一至兩年內實現。目前Walmart僅在美國五個城市進行新服務的實驗性測試Walmart To Go，用自有貨車與FedEx或其他公司提供宅配服務。克服眾包不確定的人力因素，可以預見在未來共享經濟會越來越蓬勃。Walmart近期開始開發較小型的實體店面，佔地4萬平方英呎，進入小城市的消費市場；此外，繼兩年前於University of Arkansas-Fayetteville(阿肯色大學)校區的Walmart開設，第二間進駐校園的Walmart也在Arizona State University(亞利桑那州州立大學)新開幕，面積僅有5千平方英呎。

But wait—there's more! As in: There's more to the stories about Walmart planning to have lockers at its stores where online customers can pick up packages. It turns out that the chain may also want to turn its real-life locations into busy hubs for outgoing deliveries of goods by renting space and time in the vehicles of some of its customers.

Reuters reported that Walmart is considering such an initiative for same-day delivery to keep up with advances by Amazon and Google planned for that realm. The idea faces a lot of legal, regulatory and privacy obstacles, but it could be coming to a Walmart near you soon.

"I see a path to where [delivery] is crowd-sourced," Joel Anderson, chief executive of Walmart.com in the United States, told the news service. Another executive added: "This is at the brain-storming stage, but it's possible in a year or two."

Currently, Walmart uses FedEx or other services for delivery from stores; and in the case of a service it is testing in five cities called Walmart To Go, the company has its own delivery trucks.

What Walmart.com executives now have in mind is to tap into the traffic patterns of its millions of customers each week. Some of the shoppers could sign up to deliver packages in their neighborhoods or en route back home. Walmart would offer a discount on the customer's shopping bill, effectively covering the cost of their gas in exchange for package delivery, Reuters said.

It's an interesting way that Walmart could enter the increasingly robust "sharing economy" characterized by the sharing of cars and all manner of other goods and services. Already, Walmart has been crashing to attempt to catch up with Amazon and other rivals in its focus on digital shopping, understanding that the future increasingly is slipping away from traditional brick-and-mortar superstores.

There is a mindboggling number of potential pitfalls in the way of establishing such a service. What if the "delivery driver" can't resist digging into the package he's carrying for a peek? What if she's driving a beater that breaks down before she drops off the goods and wreaks some kind of havoc with the intended recipient's life? What if a hired hand drives off the road and over a cliff—what are the attendant liability questions?

Such concerns help explain why Walmart continues to try other innovations across the board as well; they're not all going to work. One of the company's other new ideas is to try new concept stores in an even smaller format than its 40,000-square-foot Neighborhood Market stores that dot some U.S. cities. On the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe, Walmart has opened its second Walmart on Campus store, just 5,000 square feet; it previously opened such a space at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville campus, in its home state, two years ago.

Walmart has always been an innovator in logistics and store formats. Whether it also can push to the front of the pack with digital initiatives such as crowd sourcing delivery seems problematic.

參考資料來源

1. http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2013/03/28/Walmart-Deliveries-032813.aspx
2. 註：眾包(crowdsourcing)是因應網際網路更發達帶來的新生產組織形式。《連線》(Wired)雜誌記者Jeff Howe於2006年發明的一個專業術語，描述企業利用網際網路來將工作分配給志願員工，發現創意或解決技術問題。志願員工願意利用業餘時間工作，滿足於對其服務收取小額報酬，或者暫時並無報酬，僅僅滿足於未來獲得更多報酬的前景，此型式尤其對於軟體業和服務業，提供了一種組織勞動力的全新方式。