Lidl to Offer Boxed Express On-Demand Delivery
Lidl US has joined forces with online-only wholesale retailer Boxed to bring online ordering and Boxed Express on-demand delivery to select Lidl locations. In its first national partnership, Boxed will offer the deep discounter access to a homegrown suite of technology and services encompassing the whole shopping experience, from checkout to fulfillment, beginning with grocery delivery. The six-month pilot will launch at two locations: Staten Island, N.Y., and Powder Springs, Ga.
Starting next month, Boxed will offer Express delivery exclusively from Lidl stores in the pilot territories. Consumers can now browse the entire Lidl assortment and inventory of snacks, fresh produce, beverages and home essentials on Boxed.com. Upon checkout, shoppers can schedule a two-hour delivery window to receive their groceries at home.
“Ecommerce is just one component of shopping today,” said Chieh Huang, CEO of New York-based Boxed, one of the few commerce companies that writes its own software, runs its own fulfillment centers and builds its own automation robotics in-house. “Partnering with companies like Lidl allows us to bring our technology to more retailers and help them succeed in today’s competitive grocery landscape. Lidl provides a really awesome product at a great price and shares our excitement to deliver the best possible product and experience for both of our customers.”
Boxed Express enables customers to get their groceries in as little as three hours after they place their order. In the future, Lidl will also be able to leverage Boxed’s three nationwide fulfillment centers, buy-online-pickup-in-store capabilities and Smart Optimization feature, the last of which can predict when shoppers will most likely run low on a particular product, provide recommendations for shopping and prompt automatic reordering.
Lidl operates about 10,500 stores in 29 countries. With U.S. headquarters in Arlington County, Va., the company now has more than 65 stores across nine East Coast states.
