Wal Mart announce today that the company will be using Uber and Lyft in tests for its grocery delivery service in Denver and Phoenix. The move is aimed at positioning Wal-Mart to better compete with Amazon.
Per USA Today:
Under this pilot program Walmart will be expanding into what’s known as “the last mile,” or delivery from the store to a customer’s home.
Walmart has been delivering in San Jose and Denver for the past few years, offering same-day delivery through a Walmart grocery truck. The company began testing grocery deliveries to business customers in Miami earlier this year through a partnership between its Sam’s Club brand and Deliv. The Uber and Lyft deliveries will be coming to Denver and Phoenix in the next two weeks, offering direct delivery from stores to customers. Uber will be handling deliveries in Phoenix, while Lyft will be covering Denver.
In addition to opening up new cities for deliveries, Walmart will also be expanding its grocery pickup service to 14 new markets this month. By the end of July the service will be in over 60 markets, more than triple the 20 markets the company started with in April.
Similar to Amazon’s Prime Now, a customer orders items online and chooses a two-hour delivery window. Walmart employees then gather the items on the list and request a driver from one of the services to come and pick them up. Current items offered range from fresh produce and meat to bakery items, baby food, cosmetics, batteries, diapers or pet food. The company says 40,000 items are available, 30,000 of them food-related and 10,000 more general merchandise items
And this visualization proves Wal-Mart has to do something drastic.
