Walmart Uses Uber Eats, DoorDash Drivers to Fulfill Orders Fast From Local Stores

Walmart, in attempting to grow its instant delivery service, has hit some hurdles, according to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Sunday (Nov. 28).

The recent switch to more digital, quick forms of eCommerce has seen the popular retailer moving items from stores to homes directly, utilizing workers from food delivery apps like Uber Eats and DoorDash to get those deliveries done.

But that also comes as people are getting surprise visits from drivers who have come to deliver small single items that people didn’t expect — they were intended to be parts of larger orders. In other cases, there have been Christmas presents for children delivered at unexpected times. And sometimes the packaging has been unusual, creating further confusion — some contain the wrong items altogether.

The instant deliveries happen if the route is quicker than the usual warehouse path where orders are packed up and delivered by mail carriers.

That has seen several Walmart orders reportedly arriving early, in defiance of the predictions that the supply chain has been lagging in many areas. Per the report, while Walmart might lose money on some orders in the same way lots of eCommerce sites do, the retailer is looking at a future where specific neighborhood deliveries are so tight that the delivery makes more sense.

PYMNTS wrote recently that the competition between Walmart and Amazon is continuing, with the two companies both looking to drive up fourth-quarter profits that way.

Read more: AMZN vs. WMT Weekly: Amazon Finally Matches Walmart for Consumer Retail Sales

Both of them lost some money between Q2 and Q3, though, and Walmart at least has seen a minor decline in retail spending. The data also shows the predictable hit retail took in favor of the online spending that has become ubiquitous.

The data from PYMNTS shows that there’s likely to be a big pool of holiday shoppers, which will come with almost 87% of users shopping online this year.