Walmart’s New Service Gives Retailers Another Option for Last-Mile Delivery
The white-label delivery service furthers the retailer’s strategy to build alternative revenue streams and profit pools.
Walmart announced that it is commercializing its delivery platform through a new offering, Walmart GoLocal, a delivery as a service initiative that aims to help businesses of all sizes bring their products closer to their customers’ doorsteps.
Walmart’s new offering emphasizes the huge demand for last mile delivery as well as the importance of omnichannel capabilities for retailers.
Walmart GoLocal also furthers the retailer’s strategy to build alternative revenue streams and profit pools.
“In an era where customers have come to expect speed and reliability, it’s more important than ever for businesses to work with a service provider that understands a merchant’s needs,” said John Furner, president and CEO, Walmart US in prepared remarks. “Walmart has spent years building and scaling commerce capabilities that support our network of more than 4,700 stores and we look forward to helping other businesses have access to the same reliable, quality and low-cost services.”
Tom Ward, senior vice president, last mile, Walmart US, added that the company is “pleased” to be able to use its capabilities to serve another set of customers, local merchants as part of its omni-channel approach.
“Be it delivering goods from a local bakery to auto supplies from a national retailer, we’ve designed Walmart GoLocal to be customizable for merchants of all sizes and categories so they can focus on doing what they do best, leaving delivery speed and efficiency to us,” Ward said.
Developing efficient, omni-channel transport strategies is a trend some say is here to stay.
“A lot of the people that we are seeing do well now have a history of promoting and developing the omni-channel brand and platform,” Mike Moran, vice president at Black Creek Group, told GlobeSt.com in an earlier interview. “The convenience of the omni-channel model is going to be here in a meaningful way for the future.”
In the past three years, Walmart launched and scaled delivery and Express delivery for its customers on 160,000+ items from more than 3,000 stores, reaching nearly 70% of the US population using its existing delivery network, which includes drones, autonomous vehicles and market fulfillment centers.