Photo: Walmart
Walmart has announced plans to run pilots with the third-party ride-sharing services, Lyft (Denver) and Uber (Phoenix), to deliver online grocery orders to customers’ homes on the same day they are placed.
The goal is to determine how Walmart can further ease shopping for its customers in light of growing competition from a wide variety of competitors — Amazon, Kroger, Whole Foods, et al.
In each market, Walmart will receive customer orders that are then filled by associates trained specifically for the task. Once pulled together, Walmart will request Lyft or Uber send a driver to take the order directly to its final destination.
Customers pay for their orders online (a normal $7 - $10 delivery charge is included) and receive notice that a driver from one of the services is on the way with an estimated time of delivery. Walmart shoppers do not have to pay the drivers.
According to TechCrunch, at the proposed delivery fees, Walmart is likely to undercut others in the same-day grocery delivery space. Even so, price conscious Walmart shoppers are unlikely to switch in big numbers from ordering online and picking up in-store to the direct delivery alternatives facilitated by Lyft and Uber.
At its annual shareholders’ meeting last week, Walmart announced it was expanding curbside pickup of groceries to stores in 14 new markets by the end of this month. This follows a move to curbside pickup in eight new markets back in April.
"We’re thrilled about the possibility of delivering new, convenient options to our customers, and about working with some transformative companies in this test," Michael Bender, chief operations officer of Walmart's Global eCommerce division, told USA Today. "We’ll start small and let our customers guide us."