10/05/2021

Walmart To Provide Delivery For Home Depot

Editor-in-Chief, CGT

The Home Depot operates 2,300 stores across the U.S. Editorial credit: Rob Wilson / Shutterstock.com

Walmart has nabbed its first customer for its GoLocal delivery service, and it’s a big one.

The Home Depot is joining the retailer’s white-label GoLocal delivery service, first announced this summer. Under the partnership, Home Depot shoppers will receive another option for same-day or next-day delivery on select products.

Qualifying products — which includes supplies that easily fit in a car — will have the option enabled at online checkout. The service will be available in select markets in the coming weeks, and is slated to expand to additional markets by the end of the year.

Stephanie Smith, senior VP of supply chain for The Home Depot, said in a statement that the partnership will bring the company closer to its goal of offering same-day or next-day delivery to 90% of the U.S. population.

“The Home Depot is continuously working to give customers the most convenient shopping experience in home improvement, and that includes providing a wide range of fast and reliable delivery options,” she noted.

The Home Depot, which operates 2,300 retail stores across the U.S., recorded 86% sales growth on its digital platforms during fiscal year 2020.

It’s a win-win deal for both retailers, Neil Saunders, managing director of retail at GlobalData, told RIS News. “For Home Depot, it improves convenience for shoppers — which is very important in home improvement, where products are often needed quickly. It also saves Home Depot the hassle of building out all the capacity to offer fast local delivery.”

For Walmart, meanwhile, the partnership will add a great deal of volume to its GoLocal network – a necessary component in order to build out fulfillment capacity in a way that competes with Amazon, he noted. “Walmart arguably needs more of these wins if it is to further ramp up the success of GoLocal.”

“We’re honored to work with The Home Depot in our shared goal of making fast and reliable local delivery available in every community we serve, including rural and suburban areas, where we both have a strong retail presence,” John Furner, president and CEO, Walmart U.S., said in a statement. “We’re excited to welcome The Home Depot as Walmart GoLocal’s first retail client and look forward to helping power their local delivery efforts.”

In launching GoLocal, Walmart intends to bring its local delivery capabilities to retailers of all sizes. Though the Home Depot partnership is limited to items that can fit in the car, Walmart has said it can include delivery for items with both size and complex requirements.

While Home Depot is the first retail client Walmart has announced as part of GoLocal, it said during the initial August announcement that it had established a number of contractual agreements with both national and enterprise retailers.

Walmart is the No. 1 retailer when ranked by total retail market share, according to the RIS News Top 100 Retailers list, while Home Depot is No. 7.

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