Walmart Files Patent for Storing Payments Data Using Blockchain Technology
Retail giant Walmart is having a tough time competing with its online marketplace rival Amazon, as the latter has managed to establish a very strong foothold in this segment by beating Walmart in the customer services it offers.
Walmart is still not able to match with Amazon’s one-day, or same-day, shipping - a unique experience that lures customers to its platform.
In order to counter this, Walmart is considering using the blockchain technology that can help them in establishing systems to over this disadvantages. The retail giant has filed for two patents - courier shipping system and vendor payment sharing system. Both these patent applications have been published by the U.S Patents and Trademark Office.
Walmart has understood that one of the biggest demands of consumers of online shopping is that they want their shipping deliveries at the drop of the hat. This is the area where Amazon has ablate tap in early and has been dominating other players with their exclusive shipping services.
The Walmart patent application states: “Online customers enjoy a customized and expedient shopping experience that is typically not offered at a brick-and-mortar store. For example, online customers can order items online at any time, thereby avoiding the time-consuming effort of being physically present at the store to select items of interest from shelves and waiting in line at the store checkout to purchase the items especially at peak times.”
In this patent application, the retailer also notes that the blockchain services will allows online customers to have immediate access to their purchase history and will also receive suggestions based on their shopping interests and patterns or even their purchase history.
Walmart is likely to develop its own blockchain platform for tracking of these “smart packages”.
The patent for the Vendor Payment Sharing System is basically to streamline the payment experience and shopping at Walmart’s brick-and-mortar stores.
The patent application notes: “Many store customers prefer to shop online, while other store customers prefer to be physically present at a brick-and-mortar when shopping referred to as being offline. These customers enjoy walking about the store, perusing items of interest, etc. Other customers may shop at a store out of necessity since they do not own a home computer or smartphone, or have access to an internet service.”
This system will let customers get access and retrieve their purchase details from Walmart by using any smart device they have like a smartphone or a tablet. The patent says that customers will also be able to access data from Walmart servers.