Does the idea of placing an online grocery order at Walmart and then simply visiting the store to pick it up appeal to you? Walmart is now experimenting with a few pilot stores where you can do just that, and now they’re experimenting with special discounts to get customers to try it out.

Offering discounts for online orders makes sense: while they have to employ order pickers, a facility like Walmart’s new pickup-only grocery store near its mothership in Arkansas only needs to have pickup kiosks and a warehouse: there’s no need for retail aisles, pretty displays, or even cashiers. That could make pickup-only grocery more profitable…assuming that enough customers decide to try it.

In the industry, this kind of setup has a terrible acronym: BOPIS, or “buy online, pick up from store.” Walmart sent out e-mails offering $5 off any purchase or $10 off a $50 purchase to persuade customers to give it a try.

While ordering online and picking up at the store normally doesn’t save shoppers any time, in the case of a full grocery order that may be different. The Pickup Grocery test store is in Arkansas is a retail laboratory of sorts that’s meant to test this concept for possible implementation everywhere.

Wal-Mart uses discount to woo more consumers to pickup format [City Wire] (via RetailWire)

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