Local Express Providing Delivery for Specialty Retailers Via Walmart GoLocal

Collaboration enables indies to offer convenient, flexible service to more communities

6/21/2022

Local Express is the first Walmart GoLocal client to focus more widely on specialty food and beverage retailers such as local independent grocers, bakeries and restaurants.

Independent food and beverage businesses across the country now have increased access to same- or next-day delivery by Local Express through Walmart GoLocal, the retailer’s white-label delivery-as-a-service offering. The partnership will permit Local Express, an end-to-end e-commerce platform for food retailers, to expand its delivery capabilities to serve more businesses in such areas as Chicago, Miami, and Arlington, Texas.

Local Express is the first Walmart GoLocal client to focus more widely on specialty food and beverage retailers such as local independent grocers, bakeries and restaurants as Walmart GoLocal grows and commercializes among small, midsize and large businesses.

“Local Express is focused on modernizing the e-commerce experience for food and beverage retailers everywhere. As there continues to be strong consumer demand for delivery, it’s especially important for retailers to have a seamless online ordering and delivery experience,” noted Bagrat Safarian, CEO of Glendale, Calif.-based Local Express. “Our collaboration with Walmart GoLocal will enable our food and beverage providers to offer low-cost, convenient delivery to their customers and stay competitive.”

Walmart GoLocal makes use of Walmart’s delivery infrastructure and experience to allow local businesses to get their products to customers more efficiently and at a lower cost. Over the past three years, Walmart has scaled its local delivery network to serve 2,000-plus retail locations nationwide.

“We are excited to work with Local Express to bring low-cost, customizable delivery capabilities to their independent food and beverage providers,” said Harsit Patel, general manager and VP of Walmart GoLocal. “Walmart’s scale, delivery infrastructure and world-class operations means we can bring reliability to business owners while they focus on serving their customers.”

With more than 500 onboarded stores, Local Express provides private-brand web stores, mobile apps, self-checkout and kiosks for customer convenience, as well as artificial-intelligence tools to manage fulfillment, inventory, deliveries and shipments. Earlier this month, the company teamed with the largest grocery store chain in Puerto Rico, Supermercados Econo, to upgrade its current e-commerce platform, Econo ToGo.

Meanwhile, this past March, Walmart GoLocal joined the platform of Delivery Solutions, a provider of third-party aggregation and orchestration software for last-mile delivery and fulfillment, as a last-mile delivery service provider, further enabling Delivery Solutions customers to offer an omnichannel shopping experience, including express, same-day and next-day delivery to provide retailers of all sizes with reliable, fast and efficient delivery.

Each week, approximately 230 million customers and members visit Walmart’s more than 10,500 stores and numerous e-commerce websites under 46 banners in 24 countries. The company employs approximately 2.3 million associates worldwide. Bentonville, Ark.-based Walmart U.S. is No. 1 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2022 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.