Google and Walmart Partner With Eye on Amazon
The two companies said Google would start offering Walmart products to people who shop on Google Express, the company’s online shopping mall.
Walmart said last week that its online sales — including online grocery — increased 60 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier.
Amazon’s dominance in online shopping is challenging brick-and-mortar retailers like Walmart, while
more people are starting web searches for products they might buy on Amazon instead of Google.
In January, Walmart began offering free, two-day shipping on more than two million items — a move
that takes direct aim at Amazon Prime, whose members who pay an annual fee for fast shipping and other services like movie streaming.
Google said it planned to offer free delivery — as long as shoppers met store purchase minimums — on products purchased on Google Express.
They said that they foresaw Walmart customers reordering items they purchased in the past by speaking
to Google Home, the company’s voice-controlled speaker and an answer to Amazon’s Echo.