Walmart launches local US delivery hubs in quest for speed supremacy

{"text":[[{"start":7.8,"text":"Walmart is repurposing former pharmacies, a thrift store and other small spaces in local communities as last-mile stockrooms for speedier delivery in a battle with Amazon for consumers’ grocery dollars. "}],[{"start":20.5,"text":"The largest US retailer has in the past year opened at least three so-called Walmart Depots in Dallas, New Jersey and Arkansas, the company has said in public filings. Potential future locations include former Rite Aid pharmacies in New York and California and a building previously occupied by a Goodwill second-hand store in Virginia, records show."}],[{"start":45.3,"text":"Walmart is speaking to landlords and brokers about opening more depots in the New York metropolitan area, Florida, Nevada and the Pacific Northwest, commercial real estate executives said."}],[{"start":56.949999999999996,"text":"“Walmart Depots are a new way to deliver faster to more people,” company representatives said in a document submitted to town officials for a proposed depot in Poughkeepsie, New York. "}],[{"start":67.6,"text":"Walmart declined to comment."}],[{"start":69.75,"text":"Ecommerce is a $100bn business for the group’s US division and is growing by more than 20 per cent a year. Home delivery within hours, and increasingly minutes, is crucial to its success."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":81.85,"text":"Walmart has long claimed its 4,600 US stores are a competitive advantage in ecommerce because of their proximity to customers’ homes, enabling delivery in less than three hours to 95 per cent of the country. "}],[{"start":96.35,"text":"But collecting groceries and merchandise inside a 180,000 sq ft Walmart Supercenter takes time and ecommerce pickers in the aisles can get in the way of the regular shoppers who are more profitable customers."}],[{"start":109.6,"text":"Walmart Depots are not open to the public. They are being set up as roughly 20,000-sq ft satellite stores that are exclusively accessible to gig workers using the company’s Spark delivery driver app, to collect orders and bring them to customers. The depots only stock heavy-demand household items and are overseen by managers at nearby Supercenters, according to the document."}],[{"start":131.85,"text":"One Walmart Depot opened in a light industrial building in Carlstadt, New Jersey, about five miles west of Manhattan and a few miles from three Walmart Supercenters in nearby towns. Over the past year contractors added storage racks and refrigerators inside, municipal records showed. "}],[{"start":150.04999999999998,"text":"When the FT visited this week, Spark drivers walked out with shopping trolleys loaded with milk, juice, breakfast cereal and paper towels. There was no Walmart sign in sight."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":161.6,"text":"Angel Rodriguez, a driver, said the Spark app began directing him to the site this year."}],[{"start":167.45,"text":"“I try to stay away from the stores now, because the stores are so big,” he said. “Grabbing five items could take 25 minutes, versus five items here takes five minutes. So I’m getting more work done in a short amount of time.”"}],[{"start":182,"text":"Walmart has long held a commanding lead in US groceries against Amazon, but Amazon has said its perishable food sales increased 40 times in the past year after adding them to its same-day delivery service. This week Amazon introduced 30-minute delivery in dozens of US cities for items including groceries."}],[{"start":202.65,"text":"Walmart’s filing with Poughkeepsie, where the company wants to occupy a former Rite Aid, said depots could support delivery “in as soon as 30 minutes”."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":211.85,"text":"“It effectively just looks like a small grocery store or a drugstore. The shelves are filled with products. Outside it’s not branded anything,” Jason Klipa, a Walmart government relations director, told a public hearing in Poughkeepsie last month."}],[{"start":226.6,"text":"He said the depots hold the highest-selling fraction of a much broader assortment sold in a store, which can contain about 120,000 individual products. For drivers, “this allows them to come in, pick an order, not clog the store up and get the delivery out as quick as they can to the customer”, Klipa said at the hearing."}],[{"start":246.79999999999998,"text":"Some local residents objected to the plan, saying it would turn their neighbourhood shopping centre into a logistics hub. "}],[{"start":253.7,"text":"“Is it retail? Is it industrial? Is it a warehouse? It’s something new. It’s different. This is not something we’ve seen before,” Rebecca Edwards, Poughkeepsie town supervisor, told Walmart’s representatives."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":265.75,"text":"Walmart’s Poughkeepsie proposal was first reported by the Albany Times Union newspaper, while its plans in Virginia were earlier reported by the Washington Business Journal."}],[{"start":275,"text":"Walmart’s filing described the depots as a “pilot” and a real estate broker said it was looking for relatively short lease terms of five years or less, allowing it to scrap the concept if it fails. "}],[{"start":287.15,"text":"With light industrial space in short supply in many markets, buildings vacated by other retailers are creating opportunities. Among pharmacies, CVS and Walgreens have shed hundreds of stores and Rite Aid shut down after going bankrupt — amid pressure from competitors including Walmart and Amazon."}],[{"start":306.09999999999997,"text":"A proposed depot in San Diego would replace a former Rite Aid pharmacy, while the new depot in Fayetteville, Arkansas, is in a former Walgreens across the road from a Walmart Supercenter, records show."}],[{"start":317.99999999999994,"text":"While local zoning officials might oppose new depots, shopping centres often have few restrictions for the freestanding buildings that once housed pharmacies, said Patrick Luther of SRS Real Estate Partners, a commercial property broker."}],[{"start":331.84999999999997,"text":"“If this actually takes off, it’s going to be a big relief for all these empty drugstores,” he said."}],[{"start":344.74999999999994,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1778748931_9019.mp3"}