How Walmart Will Get In Your Garage

Walmart has tapped Oak Brook, Illinois-based smart-tech company myQ to help drive its expansion of InHome delivery.

The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer's new partnership with myQ means Walmart customers who have LiftMaster or Chamberlain brand smart garage door openers will be able to grant secure, one-time access to their garage (and garage fridge, as available) to Walmart InHome delivery drivers. Households that have garage door openers from other brands can integrate myQ technology through purchase of a myQ Smart Garage Control device, myQ said in a news release Thursday.

Walmart announced in January that it was aiming to make InHome delivery, which it launched in 2019, available to 30 million U.S. households by the end of 2022, up from 6 million households able to access it at the time. That scale-up involves hiring more than 3,000 delivery drivers and assembling a new fleet of electric delivery vehicles; Walmart is reportedly out on the road now in Texas with some of the 4,500 electric delivery vans it agreed last month to purchase from Canoo. 

Walmart InHome delivery associates—who, the retailer has emphasized, are full-time Walmart employees—will place InHome orders designated for garage delivery in a customer's garage and put away any perishable items in a garage refrigerator or freezer, if present. They will sanitize any surface touched and can also pick up Walmart items for return, Thursday's news release stated. 

Walmart InHome VP Whitney Pegden said garage delivery has proved popular with the retailer's delivery customers; the option is meant to offer peace of mind that a delivery order won't be left in full view on a porch without crossing the privacy threshold of a delivery driver actually crossing the threshold into a customer's house for shoppers who don't want a stranger putting away groceries in their kitchen. 

"The goal of Walmart InHome is to give our members convenience and choice," Pegden said. "We're really excited for myQ smart garage technology to help us reach more customers with a more seamless in-garage experience." MyQ said that its integration into LiftMaster and Chamberlain garage door openers means that 20% of U.S. households already have myQ technology in their garage door system, even if they don't know it.

As of last month, InHome delivery is available as an add-on to Walmart's Walmart membership program; previously, the two were fully separate programs. A year of InHome delivery now costs $40 for Walmart members on top of a $98 Walmart annual membership—bringing the total for Walmart with InHome delivery to $138, or $1 less than a membership in (porch-deliveries-only) Amazon Prime.