Walmart's Food Delivery Challenges: Patchwork of Drivers, Tolls, Crowded Aisles
March 15 2019 - 4:49AM
Dow Jones News
By WSJ City
Walmart was caught off guard after it began offering to deliver
fresh groceries from a store in North Bergen, N.J., earlier this
month, only to find orders flooding in from across the Hudson
River.
KEY FACTS
-- Drivers from DoorDash balked at paying the usual $15 toll to cross into
Manhattan, store workers said.
-- One driver was offered $11 to make the trip. Some orders were never
filled.
-- "We never would have gone in with the intention that this would work with
$11," said a Walmart spokesperson.
-- "We offered additional incentive to drivers to finish the orders that
came in," she said.
-- The spokesperson said the company then stopped offering deliveries to
Manhattan after a few days.
Why This Matters
The mistake shows the hurdles Walmart and other large grocers
face as they race to expand fresh-food delivery and gain an edge in
one of the fastest-growing e-commerce segments.
Despite Walmart's resources and more than 1.5m US workers, it
mainly relies on a patchwork of independent companies to expand its
delivery services as quickly, broadly and cheaply as possible. For
drivers at those delivery firms, the economics of shuttling
Walmart's and other grocers' orders don't always make sense.
A fuller story is available on WSJ.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 15, 2019 05:34 ET (09:34 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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