Walmart’s In-Home Delivery service: not revolutionary and a tad dangerous
Walmart is expanding a service that delivers customers’ groceries directly to their refrigerators.
First launched in 2019, the InHome Delivery offering allows customers to place grocery orders online, then receive their deliveries by having a Walmart associate enter their home by way of a smart lock.
This is currently available to six million households across the US. Walmart now has the goal of reaching 30 million US homes by the end of the year.
A bad idea
InHome Delivery is not revolutionary and similar services have flopped, argues Dean Maciuba, Managing Partner at Crossroads Parcel Consulting.
“Giving access to your house, garage, or apartment to a total stranger making unattended deliveries means you are giving that potentially “bad person” a license to take note of your contents and determine if your house and contents are worthy of a burglary later,” he says in a LinkedIn post.
Body cams being worn by the driver, he adds, do nothing to prevent the driver from engaging in the “casing behaviour”.
They are only a deterrent and do not prevent a delivery person from stealing anything from your home. They simply make it easier to apprehend an offender.
“In this age of Covid-19, why would you allow an unknown person in your house who could possibly contaminate the rooms and door handles that must be used to access the premises?” Maciuba comments.
“Background and criminal checks should not ease your concerns about providing home access to a stranger as the best criminals do not get caught.”
“Now, there is less potential danger with limiting this type of delivery to the garage, but you are still giving a potentially “bad player” access to inventory the contents of your garage to plan a future break in and resulting burglary. Unattended In-Home-Delivery is a bad idea that bad people can exploit.”
Maciuba concludes: “Myself, I would prefer unattended delivery to a private smart parcel locker located outside and adjacent to the house, or on the porch.”
Walmart did not respond to our request for comment.
