Walmart Pushes Same-Day Delivery With Parcel

According to a news report from CBNC, Walmart is pushing full-speed-ahead with its same-day delivery plans in New York City, and has acquired local startup and delivery tracking app Parcel to make the behind-the-scene logistics work properly.

The Brooklyn-based firm specializes in handling scheduled and same-day deliveries in New York for retailers like Bonobos, as well as meal kit companies like Chef’d and Martha Stewart’s Martha & Marley Spoon. That client list will remain unchanged with the Walmart acquisition.

Walmart will look to leverage the technology and delivery network already developed by Parcel to get a jump on same-day delivery offerings for both the Walmart brand and its Jet.com subsidiary, according to CNBC.

Jet already offers no no-cost, same-day shipping, and Walmart Inc’s hope is use the Parcel acquisition to further bring down overhead costs associated with making deliveries on a dime. The purchase will also buttress Walmart’s recently announced foray into same-day delivery in New York City, a service which is designed to offer same-day package deliveries on both general merchandise and grocery orders.

On the user end, customers and merchants will receive text updates on the progress of deliveries, CNBC reported. Parcel boasts a database of every New York City building to which it has previously delivered — including photos and detailed information on service entrances — making the delivery process as seamless as possible.

“New York City is a really unique and complicated market, and that mastery is really rare,” said Jesse Kaplan, Parcel founder and CEO, in an interview.

So far, neither entity has reported the purchase price of the acquisition, though anonymous sources told Recode it totaled less than $10 million. The acquisition will include the firm’s CEO, its other six full-time employees and approximately 50 part-time employees who sort and deliver orders.

This latest acquisition is one of several since Walmart snapped up Jet.com for $3 billion last year. In the last 12 months, Walmart has also purchased Bonobos, ModCloth and MooseJaw.