Walmart Adds Next-Day Shipping in Key Cities
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Walmart Inc. is speeding up delivery times for some marketplace orders, reflecting the big-box retailer’s intensifying competition with Amazon.com Inc. for online spending.
The company’s fulfillment service, which stores and ships products for third-party marketplace sellers, will now provide next-day delivery in top U.S. cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Atlanta.
Walmart’s goal is “to deliver the speed that customers expect,” Manish Joneja, senior vice president of Walmart U.S. marketplace and fulfillment services, said in an interview. The service will apply to some of the website’s most popular items, and Walmart plans to continue expanding next-day deliveries to more areas, he added.
Walmart ranks No. 1 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest private carriers in North America. Amazon.com Inc. ranks No. 1 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest logistics carriers in North America, No. 15 on the TT100 list of the largest private carriers and No. 1 on the Top 50 Global Freight list.
The world’s largest retailer is sharpening its focus on e-commerce as a key part of its growth strategy. It’s placing a renewed emphasis on faster delivery as consumers pay up to get orders more quickly.
The company is also beefing up its marketplace by bringing on more sellers while broadening the assortment of merchandise available. Fulfillment services, which charge sellers a fee for access to Walmart’s network of warehouses, is another part of the retailer’s aim to improve profits.
The Bentonville, Ark.-based company has gained ground in e-commerce, but it’s still playing catch-up with Amazon, which has built a vast ecosystem around swift delivery and its marketplace of third-party vendors. Amazon, meanwhile, is seeking to grab more grocery spending — an area of the retail arena where Walmart has the greater market share.
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Walmart has expanded its digital business partly by increasing deliveries from its large network of stores. Its online operations, which are expected to be profitable in the U.S. for the first time this year, are also being bolstered by warehouse automation that allows for more efficient shipping. Global e-commerce sales grew 25% during the last quarter.
Walmart, which is hosting a summit with marketplace sellers this week, also said it will sell third-party items in certain stores, starting in a location in Cypress, Texas. The company is introducing new AI-powered tools aimed at simplifying the process of selling on Walmart’s marketplace.
