The Friday Checkout is a weekly column providing more insight on the news, rounding up the announcements you may have missed and sharing what’s to come.
As Walmart grows its grocery share and e-commerce presence, the mass retailer is diversifying its delivery options to reel in customers.
Earlier this week, Walmart debuted an early morning option that makes on-demand delivery available as early as 6.am.. That announcement followed the retailer unveiling plans to expand drone delivery powered by Wing and Zipline to up to 1.8 million additional households, tying the option to stores across more than 30 towns and municipalities in the Dallas-Forth Worth metroplex.
Walmart is rolling out e-commerce innovations like these at a breathless pace. Last year, it extended its Express Delivery service hours and began testing a Live Shopper feature that allows customers to modify their orders last-minute and communicate in real-time with the order picker.
CFO John David Rainey told investors in February that Walmart is improving e-commerce profitability as it taps into its extensive store fleet to help fulfill online orders, with delivery as a particular bright spot. Walmart’s efforts to boost its e-commerce are happening as the retailer continues to grow as a formidable competitor to supermarkets — especially for online grocery customers.
Walmart now accounts for more than a quarter of grocery spending in the U.S., and its e-commerce dominance is poised to continue growing that leading position. The gap between traditional grocers and mass retailers, such as Walmart, for the proportion of grocery e-commerce customers who plan to place repeat orders grew to a record high of over 20% in February, according to new data from Brick Meets Click.
In case you missed it
Save Mart serves up rare whiskey giveaway
The Save Mart Companies announced this week that it offered its Save Mart and Lucky banners’ rewards members the chance last month to buy one of 80 bottles of Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon Whiskey. Made by Kentucky-based Buffalo Trace Distillery, the “highly-coveted” alcohol has a cult-like following among whiskey aficionados, the grocery operator noted.
The exclusive offer comes at a time when grocers are finding new ways to give their loyalty members unique and differentiated experiences.
Grocery tax’s elimination could be costly for Oklahoma communities
The newly enacted law that ended the state’s 4.5% sales tax on groceries could deprive local governments of revenue they need to maintain public facilities, KOSU reported on Thursday. That’s because the law prevents cities in Oklahoma from boosting their own grocery taxes for a year, starting in August — a restriction that means municipalities also can’t increase the taxes they collect on other types of goods, according to the radio station.
Oklahoma’s constitution mandates that cities use proceeds from sales taxes to pay for projects like building roads, updating water systems and constructing police stations, KOSU noted.
DoorDash teams up with more grocers on SNAP
The e-commerce company announced this week that it has added Hy-Vee, Sprouts Farmers Market, Food City, Stater Bros. Markets and several Albertsons-owned banners to the range of supermarkets that let shoppers use SNAP EBT benefits to order groceries online.
More than 1.1 million shoppers have added their SNAP EBT card as a payment method on DoorDash’s platform since the company began allowing people to use their federal nutrition benefits to buy groceries, DoorDash said
Number of the week: 1%
That’s the annual rate of grocery inflation during February, which was down from 1.2% in January and is the lowest level for the metric since mid-2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Impulse find
She had it in the bag
Madison Ireland of Harmons Neighborhood Grocer in Utah has become grocery royalty after being crowned the winner of the National Grocers Association’s Best Bagger Championship of 2024.
Ireland competed against 17 other skilled grocery baggers, each representing their home state, in Las Vegas during the second day of The NGA Show.
Each competitor was required to bag identical grocery orders that consisted of 30 to 38 “commonly purchased items,” according to the NGA’s Best Bagger Handbook. Baggers are then scored based on speed, proper bag-building technique, distribution of weight between bags, and style, attitude and appearance.
Ireland won a $10,000 cash prize.
