Walmart is Considering Blockchain to Handle Delivery Hassles

Walmart: Delivery is one of the most tedious processes faced by online retailing companies. Walmart is a retail giant so, obviously its woes related to delivery are mammoth and need extensive planning and execution. Now, after juggling with various methods for more than a decade, Walmart is considering blockchain technology to help it schedule deliveries and ensure a smooth delivery.

Problems Faced By Walmart in Package Delivery

Online retailing is a great option for a customer because they can order whatever they want online and receive everything in the comfort of their homes while the company and the courier service work hard to execute the process. At the company’s end this process involves packing and scheduling the package and also ensuring that there is someone to sign the package when it is delivered. The company also has to struggle with cases wherein the courier is asked to leave a package somewhere else and it might not be safe.

Such cases lead to overheads and other losses on company’s part. All these issues and more has motivated Walmart to find a solution in blockchain and it has recently filed for a patent for an invention that has been developed to focus on hassle free delivery of packages while taking care of all the aspects like scheduling and rescheduling.

How Will The New System Help

In this system, blockchain will be used to establish and execute a reservation system. Each docking station and delivery hub will function as a node within a blockchain network and a reservation system at these nodes will register available capacities at each point. This method is expected to simplify the otherwise very complicated delivery system that leads to a lot of expenditure and time for the retail giant.

This is not Walmart’s First Blockchain Patent

Walmart has been constantly looking for solutions in blockchain. The company has applied for various patents in the past and many of them have been granted as well. Most recently, Walmart was granted a patent that defined a method of securely storing patient records using blockchain. It also recently got a patent approved that describes an electric grid that can be powered by Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency.