June 10, 2026
Photo courtesy of Walmart
Can (and How Might) Walmart Take a Bite Out of DoorDash and Uber Eats’ Market Share as it Partners With Subway?
In a recent press release issued by Walmart, the company announced that its shoppers — in select locations, at least for now — would soon be able to order Subway directly through the retailer’s app (or Walmart.com). Shoppers could add the meal on to an existing Walmart Express Delivery order, or as a standalone order in and of itself.
“The future of retail is about bringing more of customers’ everyday needs into a single, seamless experience. Bringing Subway delivery into the Walmart app is another way we’re using our proximity to customers and scale to make everyday decisions simpler and everyday life a little easier,” said Tracy Poulliot, Walmart U.S. EVP of eCommerce and Marketing.
And with Subway being Walmart’s most significant in-store restaurant tenant, it makes sense to start here. The service is now live in Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas, with plans for expansion to 1,400 locations as the summer draws to a close. Full customization of the Subway menu is integrated into the Walmart app and the Walmart.com portal, allowing shoppers to seamlessly add their favorite sandwich to a more traditional Walmart order.
Walmart Could Threaten DoorDash and Uber Eats By Entering the Food Delivery Market, While Also Adding Value to its Own Core Customer Base
As Mitchell Parton detailed for Modern Retail, this move by Walmart into the food delivery space could end up threatening established players such as DoorDash and Uber Eats while also adding value for the retailer’s built-in customer base.
Parton cited Poulliot as indicating that Walmart was already poised to expand the integrated food delivery program, with the groundwork ready to accommodate other in-store restaurant partners. Further, Greg Cathey — SVP of digital fulfillment transformation for Walmart — was quoted on an even larger expansion to partner with restaurants outside of Walmart locations.
“Almost all quick-service restaurant brands are located within five miles of Walmart; we think it’s a natural revolution over time to think through thoughtfully how we expand this service. Our first priority right now is we need to really focus on our in-store tenants and providing this service for them,” Cathey said.
“We have a wide assortment of ready-made meals already within the four walls of our store, and we know customers are responding really well to that, but we also know that they look for other options for convenience throughout the day — sometimes that’s a Subway, sometimes that’s a variety of restaurants that might exist. We are really going to focus on listening to the customers as we think about what options and what expansion opportunities exist in the future,” Poulliot added when speaking to the press.
BrainTrust
Lucille DeHart
Principal, MKT Marketing Services/Columbus Consulting
Lisa Goller
B2B Content Strategist
Jeff Sward
Founding Partner, Merchandising Metrics
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Discussion Questions
Do you believe Walmart will find success with this early foray into fast-food delivery? Why or why not? What are the odds of expansion as planned?
In your opinion, are there enough users of the Walmart app and website to appreciably impact market share for food delivery competitors? If not, what would it take for that to change?
Is Walmart wise to continue accumulating additional service offerings, or does it risk diluting its core product pitch?
Poll
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In the US last year, some $426.2 billion was spent on delivered foodservice. Based on current revenue, if every single transaction from Subway outlets in Walmart stores were delivered, that would give Walmart a 0.11% share of the US foodservice delivery market. So, no, this move alone is not going to take a big bite out of platforms like DoorDash and Uber Eats – and Walmart would need to bring a heck of a lot more foodservice players on board to even take a nibble. The battleground that’s actually worth watching is grocery delivery, where Walmart and platforms like DoorDash compete head-to-head. Walmart has the clear advantage here, as it controls the entire fulfillment chain.
Let’s see: you have two low-cost providers partnering to provide what is unavoidably a high cost product (relatively speaking); what could go wrong ? No. More like “how could this somehow go right?”
I see a nibble, at best.
The concept of Walmart playing in the food delivery space makes sense, however, an initial sole partnership could be very limited. The strength of Walmart and their competitive advantage is in the last mile side of the business. Their penetration of stores, proximity to the majority of the US population and overall fulfillment operations is by far their dominating feature. With the right marketing and more food partners, I do think they can creatively market product/grocery delivery with meal delivery as well. Bundling the delivery feature is a value for their cutomers–and that is what they do best.
If Walmart wanted, it could flex its supply chain strength and efficiencies to decimate fresh food delivery competitors’ fees by charging only a comparative fraction to make customers happy. In that scenario a $15 sandwich, drink and chips combo doesn’t wind up at home costing $35 with added fees and tip, rather, ends up more like $21. But the more compelling reason for Walmart to invest resources here would be steering people back to purchase in-store, and/or integrating Subway orders with grocery deliveries, costing customers next to nothing.
Walmart already has a history of reliably getting to our doorstep. Now Walmart is leveraging its proximity to our homes, partnerships, brand trust and robust logistics network by working with Subway. Time-starved shoppers will gain more convenience.
Collaborating with Subway complements Walmart’s grocery leadership, keeping Walmart top of mind for even more of our food needs. This move will attract more younger adults (and the brand advertisers who target them) to Walmart’s app and website.
This is another example of how Walmart to shows its core customers the additional ways the company strives to save them money.
There’s no way Walmart will stop at Subway if the data shows an uptick in delivery basket size or get-it-faster fees. And that’s the ticket! Walmart makes money on expediting fees. Subway drives urgency for the overall order and onboards desirable demographics. Genius. Let’s not be so literal about Walmart “taking on” fast food delivery. With Walmart, it’s never about just one outcome, and often, the least obvious.
Walmart is a terrific “final mile” player & fast-food is a natural product extension. The only question is the choice of inaugural partner, Subway. Door Dash & Uber Eats can offer menu variety that can’t be matched by Subway. Additional fast-food alternatives would make Walmart a viable competitor.
The right lens here isn’t market share in food delivery; it’s customer engagement depth inside the Walmart app. Every Subway order adds a behavioral signal Walmart couldn’t previously capture: meal occasion, time-of-day patterns, household composition. That data has the potential to enrich the profile driving Walmart’s agentic commerce ambitions.
Unlike DoorDash and Uber Eats, Walmart’s in-store tenant model gives it something neither has: physical presence plus digital integration with no middleman rent to pay. Subway as a launch partner is admittedly modest. But the infrastructure Cathey describes, proximity to virtually every QSR brand in America, is the actual announcement. Walmart isn’t entering food delivery. It’s testing whether proximity and trust can compound into something Amazon can’t replicate digitally.
The headline is laughable. Now hear this: Walmart doesn’t care about Uber Eats, DoorDash, et al.
I’m surprised this endeavor didn’t happen sooner. Various Walmarts house the likes of McDonald’s, Dunkin’, Taco Bell, Nathan’s, and others. Why shouldn’t these vendors share Walmart’s customers in delivery and make everyone happier?
Walmart doesn’t care about its share of the QSR delivery business. They really don’t care about the impact on profits. It is just a rounding, of a rounding, of a rounding of their bottom line. They care about offering customers convenience because that is where Walmart wins, every day.
This all sounds like a small step in the continuing quest to develop a delivery and logistics ecosystem that bonds the customer to Walmart in ways they can’t bond with Amazon. Subway delivery is a practice step. Other fast food delivery will be a practice step. Sounds like an ecosystem that can link a community of businesses, starting with Walmart of course, with the local community. And to do it sooner, and better, and with more sense of community, than Amazon will ever be able to do. I used to think that Amazon should buy JCP or Kohl’s to get into the physical retail business. Now I think it’s Target they should buy in order to get into the (broader market) GROCERY business and roll from there.
Exactly. An ecosystem that bonds the customer and community to Walmart.
Any company in the delivery service has to be ready for competition and disruption. As DoorDash and Uber Eats grow, they become targets for companies like Walmart and Amazon (who already plays in this space with groceries). As Neil Saunders points out, grocery delivery is the big play. The point is that Walmart is big enough to experiment. They have loyal customers who will give them a big start.
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In the US last year, some $426.2 billion was spent on delivered foodservice. Based on current revenue, if every single transaction from Subway outlets in Walmart stores were delivered, that would give Walmart a 0.11% share of the US foodservice delivery market. So, no, this move alone is not going to take a big bite out of platforms like DoorDash and Uber Eats – and Walmart would need to bring a heck of a lot more foodservice players on board to even take a nibble. The battleground that’s actually worth watching is grocery delivery, where Walmart and platforms like DoorDash compete head-to-head. Walmart has the clear advantage here, as it controls the entire fulfillment chain.
Let’s see: you have two low-cost providers partnering to provide what is unavoidably a high cost product (relatively speaking); what could go wrong ? No. More like “how could this somehow go right?”
I see a nibble, at best.
The concept of Walmart playing in the food delivery space makes sense, however, an initial sole partnership could be very limited. The strength of Walmart and their competitive advantage is in the last mile side of the business. Their penetration of stores, proximity to the majority of the US population and overall fulfillment operations is by far their dominating feature. With the right marketing and more food partners, I do think they can creatively market product/grocery delivery with meal delivery as well. Bundling the delivery feature is a value for their cutomers–and that is what they do best.
If Walmart wanted, it could flex its supply chain strength and efficiencies to decimate fresh food delivery competitors’ fees by charging only a comparative fraction to make customers happy. In that scenario a $15 sandwich, drink and chips combo doesn’t wind up at home costing $35 with added fees and tip, rather, ends up more like $21. But the more compelling reason for Walmart to invest resources here would be steering people back to purchase in-store, and/or integrating Subway orders with grocery deliveries, costing customers next to nothing.
Walmart already has a history of reliably getting to our doorstep. Now Walmart is leveraging its proximity to our homes, partnerships, brand trust and robust logistics network by working with Subway. Time-starved shoppers will gain more convenience.
Collaborating with Subway complements Walmart’s grocery leadership, keeping Walmart top of mind for even more of our food needs. This move will attract more younger adults (and the brand advertisers who target them) to Walmart’s app and website.
This is another example of how Walmart to shows its core customers the additional ways the company strives to save them money.
There’s no way Walmart will stop at Subway if the data shows an uptick in delivery basket size or get-it-faster fees. And that’s the ticket! Walmart makes money on expediting fees. Subway drives urgency for the overall order and onboards desirable demographics. Genius. Let’s not be so literal about Walmart “taking on” fast food delivery. With Walmart, it’s never about just one outcome, and often, the least obvious.
Walmart is a terrific “final mile” player & fast-food is a natural product extension. The only question is the choice of inaugural partner, Subway. Door Dash & Uber Eats can offer menu variety that can’t be matched by Subway. Additional fast-food alternatives would make Walmart a viable competitor.
The right lens here isn’t market share in food delivery; it’s customer engagement depth inside the Walmart app. Every Subway order adds a behavioral signal Walmart couldn’t previously capture: meal occasion, time-of-day patterns, household composition. That data has the potential to enrich the profile driving Walmart’s agentic commerce ambitions.
Unlike DoorDash and Uber Eats, Walmart’s in-store tenant model gives it something neither has: physical presence plus digital integration with no middleman rent to pay. Subway as a launch partner is admittedly modest. But the infrastructure Cathey describes, proximity to virtually every QSR brand in America, is the actual announcement. Walmart isn’t entering food delivery. It’s testing whether proximity and trust can compound into something Amazon can’t replicate digitally.
The headline is laughable. Now hear this: Walmart doesn’t care about Uber Eats, DoorDash, et al.
I’m surprised this endeavor didn’t happen sooner. Various Walmarts house the likes of McDonald’s, Dunkin’, Taco Bell, Nathan’s, and others. Why shouldn’t these vendors share Walmart’s customers in delivery and make everyone happier?
Walmart doesn’t care about its share of the QSR delivery business. They really don’t care about the impact on profits. It is just a rounding, of a rounding, of a rounding of their bottom line. They care about offering customers convenience because that is where Walmart wins, every day.
This all sounds like a small step in the continuing quest to develop a delivery and logistics ecosystem that bonds the customer to Walmart in ways they can’t bond with Amazon. Subway delivery is a practice step. Other fast food delivery will be a practice step. Sounds like an ecosystem that can link a community of businesses, starting with Walmart of course, with the local community. And to do it sooner, and better, and with more sense of community, than Amazon will ever be able to do. I used to think that Amazon should buy JCP or Kohl’s to get into the physical retail business. Now I think it’s Target they should buy in order to get into the (broader market) GROCERY business and roll from there.
Exactly. An ecosystem that bonds the customer and community to Walmart.
Any company in the delivery service has to be ready for competition and disruption. As DoorDash and Uber Eats grow, they become targets for companies like Walmart and Amazon (who already plays in this space with groceries). As Neil Saunders points out, grocery delivery is the big play. The point is that Walmart is big enough to experiment. They have loyal customers who will give them a big start.