Walmart Eyes Bigger Piece of Grocery Delivery Pie

When a company such as Walmart or e-commerce giant Amazon.com enters a market, you know that the sector will never be the same. Seeing both companies compete for market share in the same segment is becoming increasingly common.

Most recently, big-box retailer Walmart is poised to disrupt the food-delivery business further, as it continues to take aim at market leader Amazon.com. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Walmart plans to start offering grocery delivery services in New York in addition to the cities it is already serving. Amazon owns Whole Foods, where Jeff Bezos’ company initiated grocery e-commerce.

Walmart is working with Instacart for the venture and will target a trio of NY boroughs to begin, including Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. One borough that is noticeably missing is Manhattan. For its part, Instagram uses the gig economy to match delivery workers with customers on its platform, similar to how Uber and Lyft use it for ride-share purposes.

Walmart shares were up fractionally today and are close to flat for the year. Walmart is also a dividend-paying stock.

Market Landscape

Walmart’s grocery push will give it a stake in the New York City market, where it does not currently have a retail presence. Through its existing partnership with Instacart, the retailer has already expanded into grocery delivery in a couple of other states including California and Oklahoma.

Similar to how Big Tech is disrupting financial services, big-box retailers are increasingly taking market share in the delivery business, both competing and cooperating with market leaders such as DoorDash in the interim. Walmart also boasts its own delivery business dubbed Walmart GoLocal that it contracts out to other retailers.

Table Stakes

In addition to grocery delivery, Walmart and Amazon are similarly jockeying for position in the buy now pay later (BNPL) space. Most recently, Amazon has teamed up with BNPL provider Affirm in the U.S. for a deal in which customers will be able to pay for certain purchases in installments over time for no interest. In addition to Amazon, Affirm also counts Walmart among its partners.

While there is room for both companies, the table stakes continue to rise in these increasingly popular market niches.