Walmart accelerates rollout of new Express Delivery service

Walmart on Thursday announced Express Delivery, a new service that delivers more items from the store than ever before to customers’ doors in less than two hours.

Walmart has accelerated the development of the service in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, piloting Express Delivery in 100 stores since mid-April. The service will expand to nearly 1,000 stores in early May and will be available in nearly 2,000 stores in the following weeks. Express Delivery allows customers to order across more than 160,000 items from Walmart’s food, consumables and general merchandise assortment such as groceries, everyday essentials, toys and electronics.

“We know our customers’ lives have changed during this pandemic, and so has the way they shop,” said Janey Whiteside, Walmart’s chief customer officer. “We also know when we come out of this, customers will be busier than ever, and sometimes that will call for needing supplies in a hurry. COVID-19 has prompted us to launch Express Delivery even faster so that we’re here for our customers today and in the future.”

Walmart’s Express Delivery joins the retailer’s popular pickup and delivery offerings, all three of which are no-contact services for the customer. It relies on the retailer’s team of 74,000 personal shoppers who will pick customers’ orders. This includes additional personal shoppers hired specifically for Express Delivery.

Walmart will utilize its existing lineup of delivery providers to take orders from a store to customers’ doors. The service will cost $10 on top of the existing delivery charge. Walmart’s Delivery Unlimited customers will simply pay a $10 fee per Express Delivery. Like Walmart’s pick-up and delivery services, there is no markup on items; an item is priced the same as it is on the shelf.

Express Delivery also builds on the existing inventory of pick-up and delivery slots available to customers, creating more opportunity for customers to shop Walmart when and how they want.

“We have an opportunity to serve our customers no matter what life calls for,” said Tom Ward, senior vice president, customer products. “Whether it be a last-minute ingredient, medicine when a fever hits or the item you didn’t know you needed when checking off your chore list, time matters. Express is a solve for that.”

To get started, customers go to walmart.com/grocery or the Walmart app and search their ZIP code to see if Express Delivery is offered in their area. When customers are creating their order, the search feature at the top of the screen makes it easy to directly search for the exact item they need to add to their cart.

At checkout, customers select Express Delivery. They will then pay for their order and sit back and wait for their delivery to arrive. A delivery driver will pick up the order at the store and deliver it to the customer within two hours. No money is exchanged at the door.