Wal-Mart announced Thursday that it will continue to take drastic measures to cut costs and lower prices for consumers. Taking a page from the Amazon.com, Inc.
Amazon has been dominating the media lately as countless other retailers blamed poor earnings reports on Amazons ability to continue to grab more market share. Wal-Mart was one of the only companies not to complain, rather to state that they will fight back, ultimately beating Amazon at winning customers.
According to the announcement, "The main reasons Wal-Mart wants to implement drones in distribution centers is to replace inventory quality assurance employees, while also cutting inventory checks from a month to one day." Also, but slightly less interesting is that with the use of drone technology, Wal-Mart can improve the safety of all of the U.S. distribution centers.
Now when Amazon announced the use of drones there was a report on 60 minutes about how it all will work. Wal-Mart didn't have the same media hype but was clear on the overall process. The drones would be able to take 30 images per second from a mounted camera that is linked to a command center. Matches for tracking number would either read as green, blue and red, which translate to registered, empty spaces and mismatches. Despite being in early development phase, Natarajan said maturation is only 6-9 months away, with no definitive launch date set.
They also took the time to report some other tech ideas in the works at Wal-Mart, which include virtual reality and artificial intelligence. With all the other retailers submissively letting Amazon conquer them, its nice to see Wal-Mart stand up and go to battle. New Tech vs. Old and Stable. Is there room for both or will someone ultimately win the battle?
As for share price there is no question that Amazon is dominating. The steady uptrend just continues to attract investors who anxiously are selling other holdings to invest in the internet retailer.
