Walmart Teams With Instacart to Offer Delivery in NYC
Shoppers in parts of New York City can now order and receive groceries from Walmart through Instacart. Walmart does not operate any stores in NYC and stopped delivery service through the e-commerce service it acquired, Jet.com, in 2020.
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Instacart shoppers will pick up customers’ orders from Walmart stores outside the city and bring them to their homes in a same-day time frame. The service is available to customers in areas of Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens but not in Manhattan.
A Walmart spokesperson told the WSJ that the third party delivery service helps the retailer meet shoppers’ needs in areas where there are no brick and mortar stores or same-day Walmart delivery. "It's about reaching more customers," she remarked.
The route to home delivery is decidedly full of traffic, sometimes in the same lanes. Walmart uses its own network of delivery drivers to fulfill orders throughout most of the country and works with delivery partners like Instacart and DoorDash when needed to ensure blanket coverage. The company also recently introduced a crowd-sourced delivery service called Walmart GoLocal to deliver other retailers’ items to consumers’ homes. Likewise, Instacart is filling gaps in the NYC metro area for Walmart as it also delivers groceries for competitors like Costco Wholesale Corp. and Target.
“It’s a dynamic space that’s big enough for multiple providers and multiple business models,” the Walmart spokesperson added. “Obviously, the pandemic accelerated things very fast.”
Bentonville, Ark.-based Walmart operates more than 10,500 stores under 48 banners in 24 countries, and e-commerce websites, employing 2.2 million-plus associates worldwide. Walmart U.S. is No. 1 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2021 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America, while Walmart-owned Sam’s Club ranks No. 9 on the list. Issaquah, Wash.-based Costco is No. 4 on The PG 100 and Minneapolis-based Target Corp. is No. 6.
