Home Depot Hires Wal-Mart

 Yes, an intriguing retail development.

Is Home Depot’s deal with Walmart a sign of bigger things to come?

by George Anderson

Home Depot is hiring Walmart to handle local deliveries for its stores.

The retailers revealed today that they are teaming up to give Home Depot’s customers another way to have their online orders delivered on the same or next day. The two companies did not specify details, such as the length of the agreement or their financial arrangement.

The development marks the first publicly announced retailer deal for Walmart’s GoLocal delivery service, which debuted in August. The white label service, which uses third-party drivers, delivers orders for other businesses across the country. Walmart had said that it signed deals with both national and smaller accounts when it launched GoLocal but did not specify any companies at that time.  ... ' 

Google Express Expanding in Retail

Another strong movement to online retail,  but I do note that many of these interactions are not exclusive.  Many retailers will likely look at multiple options. Who will provide the better and most engaging interaction, to the most people?

Okay Google, I want to order from Home Depot’   By George Anderson in Retailwire. With commentary.

Google is on a retail roll. Home Depot announced it will join Google Express this fall with shoppers being able to place voice orders using Google Assistant with the tech giant’s Home speaker device or mobile app. The Home Depot announcement comes just a couple of weeks after a similar announcement was made by Walmart.

With two of the largest retail chains in the world moving into voice with Google, the question becomes of more a matter of when than if with others selling on the Express platform. Other retailers on Google Express include Bed Bath & Beyond, Costco, Kohl’s, Payless, Pier 1, Toys “R” Us, Ulta, Walgreens and others. .... " 

Shop Home Depot with Voice Using Google Home

Another voice based shopping example in place.  I would imagine that DIY interactions could often use visual interaction as well, so assuming the Google Home will provide that?

Home Depot adds ‘voice-activated’ shopping to the mix
By Deena M. Amato-McCoy in Chainstore Age

The nation's largest home improvement retailer is getting in on the voice shopping game.

Home Depot is joining Google Express this fall, a move that will give its customers the ability to shop just by speaking their orders. Google Assistant, the search giant's online shopping platform, resides on Google’s smart speaker Google Home and other smart devices. 

The new option expands Home Depot’s omnichannel strategy, which currently encompasses 2,282 store locations and a digital endless aisle available online and via mobile devices. By adding Google Assistant to the mix, customers will be able to shop via voice on Google Home devices, or the Google Express website or app. ... " 

Cortana Price Comparisions

Would have thought that Amazon would have tried this as well.  Ideal idea for an assistant.  I note that it works only on Windows 10,  on the not commonly used Edge Browser,  not on common mobile devices at this time.   So quite a few restrictions.

Cortana can now do price comparisons when you’re shopping online

Posted by Sarah Perez (@sarahintampa)

Microsoft’s digital assistant Cortana will now be able to save you money when you’re shopping online. The company announced today that it will begin a pilot test of a new Cortana feature that will pop up the best price and availability of similar products, when you’re shopping the websites of over a dozen top retailers in the U.S., including Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Best Buy, Home Depot, and others.

The savings feature will only work when you’re shopping online using Microsoft’s Edge web browser, and have the Windows 10 Creators Update installed. ...."

IBM Integrates Weather APIs into Bluemix

We were early users of weather data in retail and supply chain analytics, this would have been very useful. Integration with cognitive links in particular are intriguing.  Note this includes both data and forecasting capabilities from the Weather Co.  Which could let you predict things like the demand of products influenced by weather, both current and future. Will be interesting to see what other things
come out of this evolution.

(Update)    I missed mentioning one of the most obvious direct applications: Agribusiness. When we were still in the coffee business could we have predicted flavor components based on past weather data? Which then could have been used to change components of green coffee blends?  .....

IBM Just Made It Easier to Build Apps That Harness the Weather

" ... Today’s announcement—putting the Weather Company API on BlueMix—means it will be less of a hassle for developers to add weather data to their next great app. “If you were building an app on BlueMix and wanted to add weather prior to this Weather Company add on, you’d have to open a new window go to the Weather Company’s platform, get an API key, deal with billing, subscription services, all the normal administrivia that comes from sourcing data from many places,” says Bryson Koehler, the Weather Company’s chief information and technology officer. Which isn’t necessarily a huge pain, but think about it this way: If you were building a couch, would you visit one store for the lumber, another for the screws, another for the saws to cut the lumber, another for the drill to use the screws … or would you just go to Home Depot and grab all that crap at once? .... " 

But hey, not everyone likes Home Depot. So how is BlueMix as a one-stop API shop? (If you don’t know, APIs are programs that let other programs and apps talk to each other.) Well, it’s IBM, so it is pretty thorough. Beyond the basic starter kits for various API fucntions (banking, Internet of Things, cloud computing), it lets you access cool stuff like Watson’s cognitive computing tools, so you can do creepy things like build psychological profiles of the consumers using your app. .... "

Power of How to Videos

Google on how to videos, pitching YouTube, with as always,  interesting stats.  I remember the family using a 'how to tie a necktie' in the early days of the Web, left a lasting impression.

" ... For big projects and small fixes, people look for how-to videos on YouTube, increasingly on mobile. Of smartphone users, 91% turn to their devices for ideas while completing a task. See how brands like Home Depot and M·A·C are using mobile video to reach people in these 'I-want-to-do' micro-moments. ...  " 

Cyber Insurance Policies

In the CACM:   A good overview of the direction and providers of Cyber insurance policies.

" ... The cyber attacks carried out against Sony, Target, Home Depot, and J.P. Morgan Chase garnered a great deal of press coverage in 2014, but data breaches, denial-of-service attacks, and other acts of electronic malfeasance are hardly limited to large, multinational corporations. However, it is the high-profile nature of these breaches—as well as the staggering monetary costs associated with several of the attacks—that are driving businesses of all types and sizes to seriously look at purchasing cybersecurity insurance.

Currently, the global market for cybersecurity insurance policies is estimated at around $1.5 billion in gross written premiums, according to reinsurance giant Aon Benfield. ... "

Internet Tells you How with Services

Since the beginning of the Internet, I have been interested in how it can provide teachable moments, and how people have used it as a primary place to find information to get things done. Google writes about their YouTube service as a means for visual, tactile instruction.   " .... For big projects and small fixes, people look for how-to videos on YouTube, increasingly on mobile. Of smartphone users, 91% turn to their devices for ideas while completing a task. See how brands like Home Depot and M·A·C are using mobile video to reach people in these 'I-want-to-do' micro-moments. .... " .   

Take this further, based on the O*Net job database (See tag below) which decomposes jobs into component services.     Could the same be done to provide links between requirements for a job and available micro moment services?    Selectively accessing and combining data, cognitive systems and human resources.

How Retail Hacking Works: Danger at Point of Sale

A very instructive piece in the Cisco Blog about how retail hacking at point of sale works, and how it can be addressed.  Must reading.   " ... With the announcement that yet another major retailer has allegedly been breached, it is important to review how attackers compromise retail systems and how such intrusions can be prevented. In this latest case, US retailer Home Depot is investigating to determine if a large cache of credit card information offered for sale on the rescator.cc underground trading forum originated as a result of a breach in their systems. ...  " 

Maximum Flow

In CACM:  Maximum flow algorithms in a network under under constraint are a classical application of mathematical programming.  It has many applications.  This article covers advances in the methods.   Can also be used strategically for supply chain applications.  For years I made a career out of these. Article starts straightforward, but ends very technical.  They sound like one of those word problems:

" .... we give a simple example of each problem: For the maximum flow example, suppose we have a graph that represents an oil pipeline network from an oil well to an oil depot. Each arc has a capacity, or maximum number of liters per second that can flow through the corresponding pipe. The goal is to find the maximum number of liters per second (maximum flow) that can be shipped from well to depot. For the minimum cut problem, we want to find the set of pipes of the smallest total capacity such that removing the pipes disconnects the oil well from the oil depot (minimum cut). ... " 

Mobile Payments Not a Game Changer Yet

In Knowledge @ Wharton:  Thoughts in advance of the March Pay-Pal phone wallet acceptance at Home Depot.  The uptake is still very small for the US consumer.  What will it take for more general acceptance of the smartphone wallet?  It has been a long time since its firm prediction.

Analytics in Action: Office Depot Price and Promotion Optimization

An excellent example of the use of business analytics to improve business process.   I gave a talk to a  corporate client just yesterday on the integration of data, process, model and visualization delivery to provide real value to business.    We sit at a confluence of capabilities to provide this value in just the right business contexts:    This example is by DemandTec:

Price and Promotion optimization Bring $40M in Benefits to Office Depot
Price optimization and more effective promotional strategies brought $40 million in benefits to Office Depot during the first nine months of fiscal 2011. The retailer is also reporting positive results from its new smaller-format stores, which executives say are achieving 90% of the sales volume of traditionally-sized stores while carrying only half the number of SKUs. The smaller stores are 18,000 square feet on average, compared to the 27,000-square-foot average traditional store; the retailer operates more than 1,600 stores worldwide.... "

The Market and Hurricane Preparedness

M J Perry writes about how companies like Wal-Mart and Home Depot can deliver predictable disaster materials through the magic of the modern supply chain.  The market can drive some major results if government will allow it.  I remember our own determined reaction to Katrina in New Orleans and the results were excellent.

ScanBuy at Home Depot

Do it yourself stores have a particular challenge, they often need to train shoppers in the use of many products that they might buy at a store for the first time.  Sometimes called 'extended packaging', the idea is to link a shopper to necessary information, specifications, sales-pitches, promotions and use videos that might be available.  We talked to Scanbuy about their 2-D barcode reading system several years ago. You can experiment with their Scanlife concept online.  They now support all kinds of barcode types.

 More shoppers understand the concept today and there are more smartphones out there.  Yet it still requires a level of 'training' to do the scanning.   It was an early implementation of reading barcodes from a smartphone.   Different than a location based system. The codes can be read at home in printed advertisements, online or at the store.  More about what Home Depot is doing in Mashable.  ScanBuy was impressive in attempting to address the problem of understanding shopper behavior.

AisleBuyer Eliminates Checkout Wait

An early collaboration between startup AisleBuyer and MagicBeans. Former colleage Andrew Paradies is the CEO. Previously mentioned here. Overall a very good idea for leveraging smartphones in retail. Good review that includes experience specifics.

iPhone app eliminates waiting in checkout line
By Scott Kirsner Globe Correspondent

Most of us have had a chance to use self-checkout systems at stores like Home Depot, Shaw’s, and CVS by now. At some places, they’re popular enough that there’s no difference between the length of the cashier’s queue and the self-checkout queue.

But what if you could scan items in the store as you put them into your shopping cart, using your iPhone, and pay with a credit card — without waiting in line? That’s the idea behind the new app from Boston-based AisleBuyer, which showed up on the iTunes Store earlier this month. The free AisleBuyer app also lets you read product descriptions and reviews on your iPhone. The company calls it the “world’s first mobile checkout system,’’ and I had a chance to try it out last week at Magic Beans, a Brookline store that is the company’s first retail partner ... "

Shopper Assistant Adds Store Flyers

Recently I mentioned the IPhone Shopper, a store shopping list and aisle context application. I have done some additional explorations with the idea.

In a recent press release they have added the ability to get personalized promotional fliers from a number of chain stores.

They have ' ... launched weekly flyers from leading retailers such as Target, Best Buy, K Mart, Sears, Meijer, Walgreens, Lowes and Home Depot (among many others) in the app. Busy consumers no longer need to flip thru the weekly printed circulars to find deals on the items they are looking for. Users simply keep their shopping lists as they always have, and Shopper searches local stores for relevant specials ... ' Full Press release.

Regrettably it does not include US megachain Kroger where I do most of my chain shopping, nor Costco where I venture weekly, but I have set it up for nearby Meijer and CVS. Note it does cover far more retail than just Grocery. It is said to personalize fliers for you based on your shopping lists and the location of your store. Have yet to see some offers here, but I just set it up. A move in the right direction. What I want to do is to have it automatically indicate offers whenever I enter, or get close to a store. In fact why not have an option to bring up promotions for any participating store when you approach, regardless of your shopping list?

Ultimately would also like to see this connected to a fast and reliable IPhone 2D scanner such as RedLaser, previously reviewed here. The Redlaser system has its problems, for example it will not read something as simple as an upside-down bar code or a reflective surface.

When Customers Negotiate

Attended a most interesting talk at UC this past week on negotiation models. Readers will recall that I previously covered auction analysis here. A simplified model, but great work. I will post a link to paper or slides here when I get them.

Update:Paper on dynamic pricing and negotiation, paper on channel implications of negotiation.

When Customers Negotiate: Implications for Dynamic Pricing and Supply Chain Management
Goker Aydin, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University
Haggling has become increasingly popular in recent years: 72% of American consumers haggled during the holiday season in 2008 compared to 56% a year earlier. Beyond the usual suspects such as auto dealerships and furniture stores, customers successfully bargained at stores such as Best Buy, Home Depot, Polo Ralph Lauren, and Nordstrom. This landscape presents a new challenge for retailers: whether or not to engage in bargaining. We study this question in two separate contexts: a retailer dynamically adjusting the price of a product with a short lifecycle; and a distribution channel, where both the retailer and the manufacturer have a stake in the decision to bargain.

Many retailers that were reported to discreetly allow negotiation sell short lifecycle products such as high-tech consumer electronics (e.g., Best Buy) or style goods (e.g., Nordstrom). For such products, retailers frequently change the posted price over time. In such a retail environment, the outcome of the negotiation depends on the inventory level, the remaining selling season, the retailer's bargaining power, and the posted price. We characterize the optimal posted price and the negotiation outcome as a function of inventory and time. We show that negotiation is particularly effective when the inventory level is high and/or the remaining selling season is short ... '

Contactless at Home Depot and Best Buy

At StorefrontBacktalk ... a good report on how contactless payment is progressing. Though I see the devices everywhere, it seems not as well as we were told just a few years ago:

' ... Two of the biggest powerhouses in retail today—Home Depot and Best Buy—are about to reflect the yin and yang of the contactless payment struggle, with Home Depot quietly planning on deploying contactless chainwide in about a month. At the same time, Best Buy—an early and prominent contactless advocate, with full deployments from April of last year—is threatening to abandon much of the technology ... '

DataDepot for Sharing Time Series

MS Research has created a web site called DataDepot that allows participants to share time series data. A little reminiscent of IBM's Many Eyes, but far fewer options. Seems to make everything public and you can point to it from anywhere, but besides that not too enticing. Maybe they should add some forecasting options?

In-Store Marketing Report

Forbes article: In-Store Advertising: Coming Of Age?. Good, if unsurprising article about in-store ideas. Mentions the Modcart from Modstream which I posted about here, previously. A simple, digital ad for the cart handle, originally tested at Home Depot. Mentions static in-store displays, claims they are contrary to shopper behavior, but I disagree. I have now seen some excellent implementations at Whole Foods Market by Micro Industries that would seem to say otherwise. Its not about making shoppers stop, its about providing them with just in time and place information. You could also say that cart-sourced information is distracting from the store navigation process. Here is the full report by Deloitte / GMA on shopper marketing.