Earlier this year Walmart ended their ShippingPass program in favor of offering free 2nd day shipping on around 2 million products. In their next step to stay competitive, Walmart announced the Associate Delivery program. The goal of this new program is to help get your order delivered faster as well as put more cash into employees pockets. On a trial basis, this new program is being offered in two stores in New Jersey and a store in North West Alabama.
The trial program is offered to associates on a 100% voluntary opt-in basis. Essentially, associates can sign up to make extra money by delivering packages on their commute home.
Associates are in complete control of how involved they were once they signed up. Everything from how many deliveries, the size and weight of the packages, as well as the days they were available to make deliveries were customizable.
“Given the footprint already built by Walmart, this “last-mile innovation” should be easy to roll out nationwide.”
Some highlights that Walmart discovered during the trial:
- Many packages are delivered the next day.
- Associates loved the opportunity to earn extra cash during their commute home.
Marc Lore, President and CEO of Walmart U.S. eCommerce, said this new program is a “win-win-win for customers, associates and the business.” Also, “It just makes sense: We already have trucks moving orders from fulfillment centers to stores for pickup. Those same trucks could be used to bring ship-to-home orders to a store close to their final destination, where a participating associate can sign up to deliver them to the customer’s house. The best part is this gives our own associates a way to earn extra income on their existing drive home.”
Lore also went on to explain how the Associate Delivery Program was unlike other gig work. “Unlike crowdsourced delivery, where the driver has to travel (often out of the way) to pick up the package, then drive the full distance to deliver it, our associates are starting at the same place as the packages. Once they’re done working at the store for the day, they pick up the packages from the backroom, load them into their vehicle, enter the delivery addresses into the GPS on their phone and head toward home.”
Given the footprint already built by Walmart, this “last-mile innovation” should be easy to roll out nationwide. Currently Walmart has more than one million associates employed in 4,700 stores across the US. This existing footprint has a walmart within 10 miles of more than 90% of the US population.
Here is a video showing how the Walmart Associate Delivery program would look like from the associate’s perspective.
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