Walmart announced today that it will be offering free NextDay shipping on up to 220,000 general merchandise items on Walmart.com eligible orders of$35 or more. The one-day delivery option, which unlike Amazon Prime, will have no membership fee, is now available to customers in Phoenix and Las Vegas and is expanding into Southern California in the next upcoming days. The rollout plan, which will happen over the course of the next few months, is expected to reach approximately 75% of the U.S. population this year, which includes 40 of the top 50 major U.S. metro areas.
In a statement put out by the Bentonville, AR-based company today, Marc Lore, president and CEO of Walmart eCommerce U.S. stated, “Our new NextDay delivery isn’t just great for customers, it also makes good business sense. Contrary to what you might think, it will cost us less – not more – to deliver orders the next day. That’s because eligible items come from a single fulfillment center located closest to the customer. This means the order ships in one box, or as few as possible, and it travels a shorter distance via inexpensive ground shipping. That’s in contrast to online orders that come in multiple boxes from multiple locations, which can be quite costly.”
