What Wal-Mart Knows

I think that Wal-Mart has been good at converting their data into an experience that serves as a competitive advantage for them, but not great. They are doing some very crucial things such as anticipating customers’ specific product needs during certain times, i.e. hurricane preparation and holiday shopping. They are also doing a great job at looking at the customers’ shopping basket and identifying groups of products purchased and in turn insuring a low price of key products to lure shoppers into their store. But there are other areas that could be addressed. For example, the location of items needs to be addressed. Not only throughout the store, but where on the shelf items are located in regards to other items as well as the items location according to height/distance from the floor. They could analyze, of the products purchased in a “shopping basket”, what percentage of those products are located in upper levels, lower levels, or mid levels in the store. Where in the store are these products purchased? Therefore, what kind of journey does your customer take through the store? And…what customers are going to what areas of the store? Or…can we place other items around certain products to make an extra sell, products the customer isn’t currently buying with that product but should. Other technology that can be utilized further is their cameras. You could deduce the height of your customers, find and average height, and determine whether your customers have difficulty accessing all products without the help of an employee (because we all know you will never get help in Wal-Mart). That is a problem, in my opinion, that really needs to be addressed (but I’m biased since I’m 5’4”). My guess would be the majority of their shoppers are women, who tend to be shorter, and would have difficulty reaching the top shelves. They can also use data mining to find the key products people come to the store for and what products they do not come for (they might already be doing this; obviously everything they are doing won’t be revealed in a NY Times article) and explore the “whys” in those answers, creating new experiences from what is learned.

I don’t think there are any privacy issues associated with all of that data and the amount of personally identifiable data they are able to capture. They aren’t getting anything that you, the customer, aren’t willingly giving them. As far as the article says, they aren’t using the data you are giving them to go searching for any ungiven data, i.e. how much your home costs. So, from what was described in the article, it does not bother me and I do trust them. The correct way to look at this problem is not how it affects me if my information were to get out in some way, but how it affects them, because every individual and company will act in the interests of themselves/itself. It isn’t in Wal-Mart’s interests to take my personal information lightly. They want to guard it for their own personal gains. Information is power. If information were to be leaked, this is just as bad for Wal-Mart as it is for their customers, not to mention they will have many angry suing customers on their hands. Sure, I’m weary about any company having my information on hand, but if it means better deals, experiences, and service for me, I’m in. Bottom line is that it is in the company’s interest to keep that information locked up and safe.

I think Wal-Mart is having both good and bad impacts on its suppliers. It is good for Wal-Mart as well as their suppliers to move to RFID instead of barcodes. Wal-Mart helps move its suppliers forward as Wal-Mart moves forward. But, not sharing much or any of the data information with their suppliers is detrimental for both Wal-Mart and its suppliers. It doesn’t allow the supplier to gain insights and therefore to make their products better. For example, a supplier could possibly determine how customers are reacting, or not reacting, to their packaging from the video cameras in Wal-Mart, or maybe specific buying habits, or who is buying their products. By not sharing this information, and therefore not helping suppliers improve their products, Wal-Mart is not selling at their full potential. Increase in sales for suppliers means increase in sales for Wal-Mart.