Dive Brief:
- Sam's Club has launched a new Express delivery tier, providing delivery to shoppers in as soon as an hour, the Walmart subsidiary announced Wednesday.
- After initial testing in select markets, Sam's Club rolled out the offering across more than 600 club locations on April 2 and has already fulfilled nearly 65,000 Express deliveries, the company said.
- With the launch, Sam's Club members can now choose between two Express delivery options. One is the standard three hours or less service, costing $5 for Sam's Club Plus members or $17 for Club members. The other is the new one hour or less service, which costs $10 for Plus members or $22 for Club members.
Dive Insight:
Fast delivery services are gaining steam this year, with Sam's Club's new Express tier joining recently announced quick shipping options from Amazon and FedEx.
“Members love our three hours or less Express delivery, but they told us they wanted an even faster option—so, we delivered,” said Greg Pulsifer, Sam's Club SVP of e-commerce, in the announcement.
The average Express order is placed, shopped and delivered in 55 minutes, but some of those deliveries have been made in as few as 10 minutes, per Sam's Club.
"A significant share of these orders includes everyday essentials such as water, produce, rotisserie chicken, and paper goods, signaling members are leveraging the service for immediate needs, not just convenience add-ons," according to Sam's Club.
One-hour and three-hour delivery options are dependent on product eligibility, inventory availability and delivery location, among other factors, per Sam's Club's website.
Parent company Walmart has also capitalized on consumer demand for fast deliveries. In the U.S., Walmart customers using sub-three-hour delivery options grew over 60% year over year, President and CEO John Furner said during a Q4 earnings call in February.
The new one-hour delivery option adds to Walmart and Sam's Club's efforts to be the go-to spot for all online grocery missions, from weekly shops to emergency buys, said Neil Saunders, managing director at GlobalData Retail, in a LinkedIn post.
"The danger of not serving all missions is that customers defect, possibly to Amazon - which is investing heavily in grocery and quick delivery," Saunders said. "And if they defect for one mission type, they might defect for more."
