Walmart has ended its grocery delivery partnership with Deliv, according to Reuters. The companies stopped working together in late January, and Deliv has since served the retail giant with a 90-day termination notice, according to people familiar with the matter.
Walmart spokeswoman Molly Blakeman confirmed the termination and told Reuters that the agreement was mutual. “As with any pilot, the intent is to learn,” said Blakeman. “And we ultimately came to the conclusion with Deliv that while their platform is a good delivery option, it was not the best fit for our program at this time.”
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People familiar with the partnership claim it was cancelled due to low order volumes and long wait times. One reason given was that Walmart gave priority to customers over Deliv’s drivers during regular hours, which contributed to drivers needing to wait 40 minutes or more to pick up orders.
Additionally, a Walmart store in San Jose, Calif. was sometimes generating only a hundred orders per week, according to sources. However, Blakeman said there were no problems with order volume in the market.
Walmart still maintains relationships with seven other delivery partners. The retailer has existing agreements with DoorDash and Postmates, and forged new agreements with Point Pickup, Skipcart, AxleHire and Roadie in January and Spark in September 2018. The partnerships will help Walmart double its grocery delivery footprint to 1,600 stores by the end of 2019.
Walmart also is experimenting with autonomous delivery through a partnership with Udelv in Surprise, Ariz. The trial, which uses vans outfitted with a cargo system designed to carry up to 32 customer orders at a time, is set to begin this month.
Deliv operates in 1,400 U.S. cities, offering same-day delivery for retailers including Home Depot, Kohl’s, Nike and Nordstrom. The delivery service raised $40 million in an October 2018 round, led by investors including Google and UPS.
