Giant retailer Walmart (WMT) may not be the first thing most think of when they think of a high-tech retailer, but it has absolutely been embracing technology lately. It just set up a new deal with a drone operator startup, and is also moving to take better advantage of the cloud. All of this together got Walmart investors interested, and shares gained fractionally in Tuesday afternoon’s trading.
Walmart got together with Zipline, a drone service startup, to augment its delivery operations in Dallas. The Zipline drones, known as P2 Zips, are currently being used to ferry orders from Walmart to houses in Mesquite, Texas. With the drone service, customers can place an order, and receive it within 30 minutes. The drones, meanwhile, deliver with a level of accuracy described as “dinner-plate,” suggesting that they can drop an order to within a margin of error roughly a foot in diameter.
The drones can carry eight pounds of material, maximum, and can take that eight-pound payload a distance of 10 miles. Thus, it may not be a complete solution just yet, but it does get us closer to one day being able to shop at Walmart without having to actually, you know, go inside a Walmart.
A Growing Cloud Presence
Meanwhile, Walmart is also augmenting its cloud presence. Recently, Walmart has shuffled its cloud infrastructure tools around to include access to generative AI tools. This includes a shopping assistant, a search tool, and what’s known as “exit technology.” Exit technology is an in-store application, used mainly at Sam’s Club locations now, to allow customers to shop, scan, and pay for purchases as they go through the store.
The exit technology, meanwhile, verifies the products are paid for as they exit the store. That should help cut down on shoplifting, whether deliberate or accidental. The move to a higher-tech operation has had an unexpected benefit; while Walmart has always been popular with lower-income markets, higher-end shoppers are taking to Walmart for the novelty and convenience the technologically-savvy shopping experience offers, reports note.
Is Walmart Stock a Good Buy Right Now?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on WMT stock based on 28 Buys and two Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 42.78% rally in its share price over the past year, the average WMT price target of $111 per share implies 31.94% upside potential.
