Also, it says a lot about Wal-Mart's opinion of its customers that it thinks the customers would be willing to do this for cheaper than any other method Wal-Mart could use to get this done.
There's a huge difference between some fly-by-night operations working in this model already existing and a company the size of Wal-Mart taking it on.
Additionally there's a huge difference between a person coming in daily as a contract employee and a company like Wal-Mart recruiting its customers at the checkout.
The difference is lawsuits and liability when something bad happens. If it's a small company there's not so much assets to go after. If it's Wal-Mart the ambulance chasers will come out of the woodwork.
I see it working. If done right, it could leverage into neighborliness. It should be marketed that way. I can see people doing it just to have an excuse to meet their neighbors.
It's the lawsuits due to the emotional/physical trauma of being robbed while delivering for Wal-Mart.
I see this as something similar to what AirBnB went through. It's not unprecedented.
The ambulance chasers would be all over this.
Not to mention widespread fraud. It's just a dumb idea.