Walmart launched a new delivery service Tuesday, which will be open to merchants across the country. The launch of the company's last-mile delivery services comes as sellers scramble to secure orders ahead of the holiday shopping season.
The retail company has been conducting trials for its company-branded delivery subsidiary earlier in the year. The move is similar to what its competitors have already been doing. Amazon previously launched its own in-house delivery service, which evolved into Amazon Shipping for third-party clients.
Walmart said that its new service, called Walmart GoLocal, can be used by third-party merchants for their delivery needs. The company said the service would utilize workers from its Spark delivery network to pick up and deliver items from interested clients.
The company's chief financial officer, Brett Biggs, said its Spark network already covers more than 500 cities in the country, and it only makes sense to utilize it as a new revenue stream.
"We were looking at different potential revenue streams, ways to commercialize the capabilities and scale that Walmart has - and so we'll think about what that means as this program unfolds," Walmart's senior vice president of its last-mile business, Tom Ward, said.
The company has yet to announce the new service's pricing structure as well as other details. However, Walmart said that its service would be "competitively priced" when compared to existing rivals.
Since the pandemic, traditionally, delivery companies such as United Parcel Service, FedEx, and the U.S. Postal Service have been unable to meet the rising delivery demand. This has prompted major retailers to create their own delivery services to mitigate disruptions in their business.
Last year's holiday season was one of the busiest on record, and most companies are expecting much of the same this year. According to UPS, delivery providers could expect as much as 5 million more parcels per day above their capacities during this year's holiday season.
UPS's chief executive officer Carol Tome previously said that the company is looking into offering "super-fast" local deliveries that would be reasonably priced compared to express delivery services offered by its rivals.
