Walmart customers can order groceries online with free store pickup in 13 markets, the company announced Tuesday.
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At the moment, the company is providing the service in 5 other markets as a part of a trial that first started in 2011.
Target Corp said this month it will partner with Instacart Inc to deliver groceries for as little as US$3.99 per order. The company said 70 percent of the USA residents live inside five miles of a Wal-Mart that makes the choice of store pickup an appealing substitute to delivery. Amazon (No. 1), meanwhile, offers a $299-a-year service called AmazonFresh in certain markets.
Google announced its plans earlier this month to begin testing a new delivery service to purchase groceries online and fresh food, later in the year in the area of San Francisco as well as one more city that was unnamed.
The service lets customers pick up their Wal-Mart orders on the same day they order them, if the transaction is completed by 10 a.m. Wal-Mart also has been testing grocery delivery to customers’ homes, but for now it’s only expanding the pickup option. In the latest statement by the brokerage house, Barclays maintains its outlook on Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Online grocery shopping and delivery is a booming industry, one in which Walmart is smart to aggressively stake a claim in.
Wal-Mart (WMT) generates more than half of its revenue from grocery, however it is struggling to boost the business.
The pick-up service will be available at select stores in new markets, including Atlanta, Georgia; Charlotte and Fayetteville, North Carolina; Salt Lake City and Ogden, Utah; Nashville, Tennessee; Tucson, Arizona; and Colorado Springs, Colorado. The stores will have designated parking spaces for pickup and Walmart employees will load the groceries into customers’ vehicles.
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The most recent expansion of the pick up service comes two weeks prior to Walmart’s big annual fall investor conference in mid-October where the company can expect a lot of tough questions about its deteriorating sales performance and rising expenses which have caused shares to tumble to the low $60 range after nosing above $90 back in January.
