Amazon and Walmart’s rivalry continues today with two dueling announcements related to their respective grocery delivery expansions. This morning, Amazon said it’s bringing grocery delivery via Whole Foods to several new markets in New York and Florida, including New York City and Miami, among others. Meanwhile, Walmart today is expanding grocery delivery in partnership with Postmates, with a launch in parts of California.
The Postmates expansion brings grocery delivery to Los Angeles and outlying areas, including Glendora, Baldwin Park, Garden Grove, Rosemead, Pico Rivera, Foothill Ranch and Santa Clarita, plus San Diego.
Postmates now powers Walmart grocery delivery in seven total regions, it notes: Charlotte, Raleigh, Oklahoma City, Las Vegas, Tucson, L.A. and San Diego.
This rollout with Postmates follows news from May of Walmart ending its relationships with prior grocery delivery partners Uber and Lyft. At the time, Walmart said customers in the four markets Uber served, and the one (Denver) that Lyft had served, wouldn’t notice any changes as it was switching them over to new delivery providers. (It actually had stopped using Lyft back in 2016, but that was only recently reported.)
Walmart currently partners with Postmates, Deliv and DoorDash on grocery delivery across 30 metros, instead of operating its own service in-house. Deliv is live in San Jose only. Walmart says it expects to be live in 100 metros by year-end.
Rival Amazon is also expanding grocery delivery with Whole Foods, but its strategy is murky, too. Amazon customers can today order groceries from Whole Foods via Prime Now, can order from Amazon’s own service AmazonFresh, or can order from other grocery stores also via Prime Now, depending on regional availability.
At some point, Amazon needs to streamline its grocery delivery operations to eliminate customer confusion.
Today, Amazon says it’s bringing Whole Foods delivery to select areas of New York City, starting with lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. It’s also offering the service in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Palm Beach and parts of Long Island. Other NYC neighborhoods will be added throughout the year as Whole Foods deliveries expand to other markets across the U.S.
As of April, Whole Foods delivery was available in 10 markets, including Austin, Cincinnati, Dallas, Virginia Beach, Denver, Sacramento, San Diego, Atlanta, San Francisco and L.A. It more recently expanded to 24 total markets, with subsequent launches in Chicago, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Houston, San Antonio and elsewhere. AmazonFresh is available in 20 cities worldwide, with Prime Now in more than 50.
As you can see, there’s some overlap in the markets served by Amazon Prime Now/Whole Foods delivery and Walmart (via Postmates) — that’s good news for customers in those regions, who will benefit from the competition not only between Walmart and Whole Foods/Amazon but others players like Shipt (Target), Instacart, Peapod and other local services.