Dive Brief:
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Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has expanded its “Grab and Go” locker program into Canada. Online customers are able to pick up their orders even after hours from Wal-Mart stores that have lockers installed.
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The retailer, which has said it is focused on boosting e-commerce in the U.S. and globally, is offering lockers at 33 more Toronto stores. Last summer, 10 stores in the Toronto area had the lockers installed on a trial basis.
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The retailer began its "Grab and Go" locker program in the U.S. last year.
Dive Insight:
Canadian retailers in general have not been very ambitious about e-commerce, certainly not compared to many of their American counterparts.
These moves by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., part of its overall corporate strategy to improve its own e-commerce game, could spur more online activity in Canada. “Click and collect” — where customers buy online and pick up in store — is one area of e-commerce that is expanding and well accepted by consumers there. “Grab and Go” is Wal-Mart Canada’s answer to that.
“Click-and-collect has proven very effective but lockers allow greater around the clock flexibility,” retail expert Doug Stephens told the Global News.
