Walmart Is Making This Major Change for Shoppers, Starting This Month
Your shopping experience with the big-box retailer could change.
Walmart will never change its everyday low prices, but like with its potential plans to sell cryptocurrency and NFTs, the store is constantly evolving its retail experience to better serve its shoppers. Some changes have been a source of outrage for customers, like its decision to do away with its normal layaway service. While others, like the introduction of its membership, Walmart Plus, have gone over relatively well. Now the company is once again bringing a new potential shopping experience to customers. Walmart just announced a new partnership that is planned to go into stores this February. Read on to find out what you can expect from the big-box retailer in the upcoming month.
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Walmart is adding a new home assembly service for shoppers.
According to a Jan. 31 announcement, Walmart is creating a new partnership with Angi, a popular home service website formally known as Angie's List. Under this collaboration, shoppers will be able to add a home assembly service to their Walmart orders, both in-store and online, and someone from the Angi team will come over and put it together for them. Angi professionals will be placed in nearly 4,000 of the big-box retailer's stores across all 50 states and be available nationwide online.
"Angi brings experience and highly-rated pros to our customers to help them get jobs done around the home," Darryl Spinks, the senior director of retail services at Walmart, said in a statement. "We're thrilled to bring the convenience and ease of Angi's services to our customers."
The service will launch sometime in mid-February.
Shoppers will be able to utilize and book Angi's services with Walmart products in mid-February, TechCrunch reported on Jan. 31. The two companies are still finalizing details, like the URL that will be used for Angi's dedicated landing page on Walmart's website. Prices will start at $49 for furniture assembly and $79 for TV mounting, according to the initial announcement.
"Since the start of the pandemic, the home is in focus and people across the U.S. are doing more home improvement, maintenance and repair work and they are often turning to Walmart to find the tools and materials needed to start those projects," Angi CEO Oisin Hanrahan said in a statement. "Things like sprucing up an entertaining space by installing a new smart TV, painting a nursery for a family addition, and transforming an outdoor space and adding a patio are now projects that Walmart customers can get done seamlessly with the help of an Angi pro as part of the Walmart shopping experience."
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The retailer was previously partnered with a different home assembly service.
This is not the first time this type of service has been offered to Walmart shoppers. In 2018, the retailer partnered with a company called Handy to sell in-home installation and assembly services in more than 2,000 of its stores and online, per TechCrunch. But that same year, Handy was acquired by Angi Home Services.
And while the former company maintained its position as the home assembly service for Walmart since then, now under Hanrahan's leadership—who was Handy's co-founder before becoming CEO of the combined Handy-Angi venture—the Angi brand will be taking over as Walmart's home services partner. As a result, Handy will no longer have its brand showcased on Walmart's website, Angi told TechCrunch.
But the new partnership will allow shoppers to access more services.
Angi and Handy aren't simply trading spots when it comes to home assembly partnerships with Walmart, however. According to TechCrunch, shoppers will have access to a larger number of services with Angi, as the company's new deal with Walmart will offer a broader amount of products available for home assembly. Handy's partnership, on the other hand, primarily focused on in-home installation and assembly services for smaller-scale projects like TV or furniture installation. But Angi's partnership will include services such as painting, flooring, fencing, plumbing, and electrical.
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