Walmart Apollo, LLC

Wal-mart Stores, Inc.

Vidyanand Krishnan

Austin Lee Smith

Michael Gilbert Ebener

Pratosh Deepak Rajkhowa

Ameya Ajay Shendre

Shekhar Gupta

Pavan Kumar Raichur Rajoli

Deepak R Deshpande

Arnon Katz

Pavan Kumar

Rohit Jain

Prakash Seetharaman

Ridhima Kaur Arora

Surnaik Prakash Srivastava

Mingang Fu

Madhavan Kandhadai Vasantham

Arun Prasad Nagarathinam

Jason D Shaffer

Shengyang Zhang

Pratosh D Rajkhowa

Sandip Mahanta

Jennifer Chen

Apeksha Mehta

Pawan Kumar

Ankit Jasuja

Kannan Achan

Evren Korpeoglu

Sinduja Subramaniam

Rahul Ramkumar

Arpan Y Nanavati

Rahul Sridhar

Mark Ibbotson

Puneet Srivastava

Lucinda Frink Newcomb

Thomas Russel Ward

Tejal Kumar Patted

Vineet Wason

Yiren Ye

Nitish Sarin

Navkaran Singh Chadha

Avaneesh Tiwari

Zekariyas Kassa Gebru

Shalina Stillman

Alyssa Thomas

Mihir Vijay Bendale

Alyssa Rae Thomas

Ryan Wayne Travis

A system including one or more processors and one or more non-transitory storage media storing computing instructions that, when executed on the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations including: receiving an order list for delivery at a delivery address; determining an estimated order collection time; continuously monitoring, in real-time, a respective location of each delivery driver of one or more delivery drivers of at least one delivery service by receiving the respective location of each delivery driver of the one or more delivery drivers from a respective delivery driver electronic device of each delivery driver; and instructing a first delivery driver of the one or more delivery drivers to pick up one or more items in the order list and deliver the one or more items to the delivery address. Other embodiments are disclosed herein.

Systems and methods for automatically invoking a delivery request for an in- progress order

A method including receiving driver tracking information from a platform of a delivery driver network of multiple delivery driver networks. The method further can include determining a platform-dependent format of the driver tracking information; and when the platform-dependent format is different from a standard format, converting the driver tracking information from the platform-dependent format into uniform tracking information in the standard forma. Moreover, the method can include determining an estimated time of arrival; and verifying a reliability of an estimated delivery time of the driver tracking information. The method further can include when the reliability of the estimated delivery time is verified, incorporating the estimated delivery time into the uniform tracking information; and when the reliability of the estimated delivery time is not verified, incorporating the estimated time of arrival into the uniform tracking information as the estimated delivery time. The method further can include providing the uniform tracking information to be rendered on a user interface of a user device. Other embodiments are disclosed.

System and method for providing uniform tracking information with a reliable estimated time of arrival

A purchasing system is provided and generally includes a server (e.g., application server), an associate computing device, and a customer computing device. The server can generate an order check-in request associated with a purchase order. The server can add a link to the order check-in request such that activation of the link directly provides an order check-in response to be transmitted to the server indicating that check-in is to be initiated. The server can transmit the check-in request to a remote terminal. The server can receive an order check-in response from the remote terminal in response to transmitting the check-in request, and can initiate check-in for the purchase order in response to receiving the order check-in response.

Method and apparatus for one-tap mobile check-in

A system for rush order fulfilment optimization is discussed. The system includes mobile devices that are each associated with a worker and a rush fulfillment engine executed by a computing system which dynamically updates a task queue of each worker upon receipt of a new rush order according to a task completion rate difference between an estimated task completion rate and the current task completion rate of the worker.

Systems and methods for rush order fulfilment optimization

A system comprising one or more processors and one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computing instructions that, when executed on the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising: determining, using a predictive analysis, an estimated collection time to collect one or more items of an order; receiving a mobile check-in from an electronic device indicating that a pickup is en-route to pick-up the order from the store; tracking a location of the pickup; periodically determining an estimated travel time for the pickup to travel to the store from the location, as tracked; and transmitting instructions for the one or more employees of the store to begin collecting the one or more items of the order on a store interface Other embodiments are disclosed herein.

Systems and methods for determining an order collection start time

A system can comprise one or more processors; and one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computing instructions configured to run on the one more processors and perform a method for dispatching a delivery driver and allowing the user to electronically tip the delivery driver. The method in this embodiment can comprise: receiving a delivery request from a user; and determining whether the order is eligible for delivery. When the order is eligible for delivery, the method in this embodiment can determine a delivery fee for the order; after the payment of the fees, dispatch the delivery driver; and upon a confirmation of the delivery, determine whether the completed delivery is eligible for tipping. When the delivery driver for the completed delivery is eligible for tipping, the method in this embodiment can further provide a tipping request to the user; and upon receipt of a confirmation of a tip, forward the tip to the delivery driver. Other embodiments are disclosed.

System and method for dispatching drivers for delivering grocery orders and facilitating digital tipping

Systems and methods including one or more processors and one or more non-transitory storage devices storing computing instructions configured to run on the one or more processors and perform: receiving a request for an order comprising one or more items; determining when the order is eligible for batch picking by finding one or more other orders comprising at least one of the one or more items; and when the order is determined to be eligible for batch picking with the one or more other orders: creating one or more clusters by clustering together (1) the at least one of the one or more items of the order and (2) the at least one of the one or more items of the one or more other orders; estimating, for each respective cluster of the one or more clusters, an estimated fulfillment time interval to make ready the order; and assigning each respective cluster of the one or more clusters to at least one respective picker of one or more respective pickers. Other embodiments are disclosed herein.

Systems to fulfill a picked sales order and related methods therefor

A method being implemented via execution of computing instructions configured to run at one or more processors. The method can include determining a primary store and one or more secondary stores for pickup of an order of a user, based at least in part on a pickup type of the order. The method also can include determining real-time availabilities of first time slots at the primary store and real-time availabilities of second time slots at the one or more secondary stores. The method additionally can include generating a list of available time slots comprising at least a portion of the first time slots at the primary store and at least a portion of the second time slots at the one or more secondary stores, based at least in part on the real-time availabilities of the first time slots at the primary store and the real-time availabilities of the second time slots at the one or more secondary stores. The method further can include facilitating displaying to the user a user interface comprising at least a portion of the list of available time slots. Other embodiments are described.

Automatically merging pickup and delivery time slots from nearby stores

Systems and methods including one or more processors and one or more non-transitory storage devices storing computing instructions configured to run on the one or more processors and perform: receiving, from one or more electronic devices of one or more users, one or more orders for pickup at a location during a first window of time; at a first time during the first window of time, determining when a designated pickup area at the location exceeds a predetermined level of congestion using: (1) continuously received mobile check-ins at the location; and (2) congestion data of the designated pickup area at the location; and when the designated pickup area at the location does not exceed the predetermined level of congestion during the first window of time, as determined at the first time, causing a pickup electronic device of a pickup to display a pickup request at the location to fulfill at least one order of the one or more orders during the first window of time. Other embodiments are disclosed herein.

Systems and methods for automatically requesting delivery drivers for online orders

In some examples, a system may include a first computing device communicatively coupled to a second computing device. Additionally, the first computing device is configured to obtain, from the second computing device, check-in data indicating an arrival of the user of the second computing device at a first location, and in response to obtaining the check-in data, determine current wait times. Moreover, the first computing device is configured to determine a first number of customers waiting for service, determine a first number of associates available to assist the first number of customers, and determine an expected wait time for the user operating the second computing device based at least on the current wait times. In some examples, the first number of customers waiting for service, and the first number of associates available. Further, the first computing device is configured to transmit the expected wait time to the second computing device.

Methods and apparatus for determining wait times

A system includes one or more processors and one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computing instructions configured to run on the one or more processors to perform: receiving, from a customer device, an online order for a customer, wherein the online order comprises a customer identification for the customer; receiving, from the customer device, a selection of a pick-up time for retrieval at a store; receiving an additional order for the customer; linking the additional order to the online order based on the customer identification; sending instructions to an assembler configured to (1) read identifiers of the online order and the additional order, (2) retrieve the plurality of items and the one or more additional items from a facility, and (3) place the plurality of items and the one or more additional items in a designated location. Other embodiments are disclosed.

System and method for adding items to an electronic order

Systems and methods for rush order fulfillment optimization

Systems and methods including one or more processors and one or more non-transitory storage devices storing computing instructions configured to run on the one or more processors and perform: receiving a request from a user; determining, using a regression analysis, an estimated order collection time for a collection of the one or more items of the order list by at least one collector; continuously monitoring a respective location of each respective delivery driver; continuously determining a respective estimated order pickup time for each respective delivery driver; and instructing the first delivery driver of the one or more delivery drivers to pick up the one or more items and deliver the one or more items to the delivery address. Other embodiments are disclosed herein.

Systems and methods for automatically invoking a delivery request for an in-progress order

Systems and methods including one or more processing modules and one or more non-transitory storage modules storing computing instructions configured to run on the one or more processing modules and perform acts of receiving a return request for an item from a customer electronic device of a customer, determining that the return request is available for a pickup return option for (1) pickup, by a driver, of the item at an address associated with the customer and (2) transportation, by the driver, of the item from the address to the store, and, if the customer selects a pickup return option: assigning the driver to pick up the item from the address and transport the item to the store, receiving a return scan for the item from a store electronic device at the store or from a driver electronic device, and initiating a refund to the customer for the item.

Systems and methods for electronically processing pickup of return items from a customer

Systems and methods including one or more processors and one or more non-transitory storage devices storing computing instructions configured to run on the one or more processors and perform receiving, at the one or more processors, an order from a customer electronic device; determining, using employee device data collected from one or more electronic devices of one or more employees of a store in a predictive analysis, an estimated collection time required for an employee of the one or more employees of the store to collect the one or more items of the order; receiving a check-in from an electronic device indicating that a pickup is en-route to pick-up the order; when the electronic device authorizes location tracking, tracking a location of the pickup after receiving the check-in from the electronic device; periodically determining, at one or more time intervals, an estimated travel time for the pickup to travel to the store from the location, as tracked; and when the estimated collection time is approximately equal in duration to the estimated travel time, coordinating displaying instructions for the employee of the store to begin collecting the one or more items of the order. Other embodiments are disclosed herein.

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Vidyanand Krishnan