With the holidays just around the corner, Walmart begins last-mile delivery service

CHICAGO, Aug 24 (Reuters) – Walmart (WMT.N) on Tuesday launched a delivery service for other U.S. retailers, an announcement that comes as merchandise sellers soar to secure pre-season deliveries important holiday shopping.

Walmart has tested its first “last mile” delivery vans this year with the company’s brand and has pulled out a page from Amazon’s game book (AMZN.O) as e-commerce driven by a pandemic demands pressure on United Parcel Service (UPS.N), FedEx (FDX.N) and US postal service.

Through its latest program, called Walmart GoLocal, Walmart will send workers from its Spark delivery network to retail stores to collect items and then deliver them to shoppers. Over the past year, the retailer has doubled Spark’s coverage in more than 500 cities, Walmart chief financial officer Brett Biggs said last week in a profit call.

“We looked at different potential revenue streams, ways to market capabilities and the scale that Walmart has, and so we’ll think about what that means as this program develops,” said Tom Ward, senior vice president of Walmart’s business at last miles of the United States. .

Walmart declined to give details on the program’s quota structure, but said it would have a “competitive price.”

Amazon.com, the world’s No. 1 online retailer, offers packages through a same-day service called Flex and hires fleets of vans that leave packages at the doors.

Walmart’s move comes as traditional traders look for another chaotic holiday season that, like last year, will see them struggling with more packages than can be delivered.

During the high holiday season, there are expected to be about 5 million more packages a day looking for delivery than suppliers who can meet that demand, analysts Carol Tomé, CEO of UPS, told analysts at July.

The company, which offers packages for both Amazon and Walmart, recently said it was exploring very fast local delivery, aside from the expensive express deliveries offered by the company and rival FedEx.

Report by Richa Naidu Edition by Chris Reese

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