ADVERTISEMENT

Walmart's Online Shoppers Won't Have to Hang Their Own TVs Anymore

Walmart's Online Shoppers Won't Have to Hang Their Own TVs Anymore

(Bloomberg) -- Walmart Inc.’s betting the kind of shopper who doesn’t want to visit a physical store to purchase a TV probably doesn’t want to mount it, either.

So the world’s largest retailer is expanding its partnership with on-demand home-services company Handy to sell installation and assembly packages right on its website, Handy said.

Walmart's Online Shoppers Won't Have to Hang Their Own TVs Anymore

Starting Wednesday and rolling out across the U.S. through September, Walmart’s online customers will be able to tack on Handy services at checkout, including television mounting for $79 or shelf-hanging for $64. For now, the services will be limited to indoor projects, like putting together a desk or installing an air-conditioner unit, though Handy Chief Executive Officer Oisin Hanrahan said it could be expanded to more categories.

Walmart, which already offers Handy installation services at 2,000 physical stores, will reach a much wider swath of consumers with the web expansion -- giving it a new leg up in the e-commerce battle, where value-added services are increasingly making their way into consumers’ shopping carts. Amazon.com Inc. has been quietly building its own in-house services division, while furniture retailer Ikea bought assembly-provider TaskRabbit last year in a bid that today’s customers will pay for convenience. Services are also a key component of Best Buy Co.’s turnaround plans.

“You’re seeing Walmart -- which is traditionally known for a price competitive approach -- thinking they need to compete on services,” Hanrahan said in an interview. “We’ve got a convenience-based economy where people value their time a lot but it’s also just a raw reality that the skills you need to do this work are in decline.”

Other Handy services like house-cleaning won’t be available on Walmart’s site, though Hanrahan said the startup “is not 100 percent against” adding those services to a third-party seller in the future.

Hanrahan declined to say how many more customers he thought Handy would reach with the digital Walmart roll out, while a Walmart spokesman declined to comment.

“We want to save time, remove frustration and help consumers enjoy their purchases faster,’’ Alex Levin, senior vice president of growth at Handy, said in an emailed statement. “Walmart is dedicated to improving the shopping experience both online and offline, and we’re proud to be a part of that effort.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Anne Riley Moffat in New York at ariley17@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Crayton Harrison at tharrison5@bloomberg.net, Lisa Wolfson

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.