Walmart's Store No. 8 Ventures Into Virtual-Reality Retail
*By Christian Smith*
In its relentless quest to improve shopping, Walmart is trying to recreate an in-store experience for online shoppers using virtual reality developed by Spatialand, a software start-up the retail giant acquired earlier this year.
VR may seem like a novelty, but Spatialand's CEO and the founder of Walmart's tech incubator Store No. 8, Katie Finnegan, said it may may be more mainstream in the near future.
"It's pretty similar when you look at the original smartphone or cell phone market, she said Wednesday in an interview with Cheddar. "Those were sort of novelties, as well."
Finnegan and Walmart hope that VR can enhance shopping for the company's millions of customers.
"Studies show that when you're immersed in it you actually retain, and actually understand and validate that information in a much better way than you could do just on a 2D screen, but also as you could do in a physical store," Finnegan said.
The company is already using VR to train its new sales associates by simulating challenging situations like November's dreaded Black Friday.
Eventually, Walmart plans to use VR to market more experiential products, which Finnegan separates from "consumables" like groceries and toiletries, for customers who may want a preview.
For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/how-walmart-plans-to-use-vr-to-improve-the-customer-experience).
Coming off of a fourth-quarter delivering just over 300,000 cars, Tesla is expected to report tremendous earnings after the bell on Wednesday. Al Root, a senior writer for Barron’s, spoke with Cheddar’s Baker Machado about the anticipated earnings report and speculated about what Elon Musk will discuss during the call with investors, including a Cybertruck update, new factories, a possible new vehicle, and/or new larger form batteries. "There's a menu of things he could talk about, and any combination of those would be good," said Root.
The American Federation Teachers Union has announced its latest partnership with NewsGuard in efforts to help educators play a greater role in deciphering facts from fiction that students see online. They say the goal is to help students build critical-thinking skills while also teaching them the importance of media literacy. Executive Vice President of Partnerships at NewsGuard, Sarah Bandt, joined Cheddar to talk more.
James Whitley, Core Contributor at cypher, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he discusses the underlying factors that support a bounce-back for Bitcoin despite the token's recent slump.
Commercial and residential buildings account for 13% of carbon emissions in the U.S., according to the EPA, and one company says it has a solution. Runwise says it has updated the boiler and heating systems of thousands of buildings, and that its technology not only lowers carbon output but also saves landlords money. Lee Hoffman, Co-Founder and COO of Runwise, joined Cheddar Climate to discuss.
Following sales tech startup Scratchpad raising $33 million in Series B Funding, CEO and co-founder Pouyan Salehi joined Cheddar to discuss how his company's software works to help salespeople with an all-in-one workspace, integrating with Salesforce to optimize notes, spreadsheets, and other relevant information so businesses can forecast and make the best decisions. "If you look at other crafts like artists, they'll have studios; chefs, they'll have kitchens; scientists will have labs, and we just asked, well, if you look at sales as a craft, why doesn't something exist that is designed solely for a salesperson?" Salehi said about his workspace app.
