Walmart is pushing into restaurant delivery. Its first goal: Getting you a sub sandwich on demand.
The big box retailer has been delivering meals from Subway restaurants located in Walmart stores for about a month, said Tracy Poulliot, vice president of e-commerce and marketing at Walmart. The retailer aims to have the delivery option live at all 1,400 Subways within Walmart stores by late July.
Business Insider first reported that Walmart was testing restaurant delivery.
Customers can place Subway orders for express delivery on their own using the Walmart app, the company said. In testing, though, many customers combined restaurant orders with groceries and last-minute items that they need into a single order, Poulliot said.
“We’re seeing a lot of customers purchase their Subway meals in addition to their groceries,” she told reporters Thursday at the company’s headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas.
Walmart has spent years building its delivery business. The big box retailer now offers delivery in hours — or minutes — on everything from bananas to garden hoses from its 4,600 stores in the US. It uses a mix of independent contractors who work through Walmart’s Spark delivery app and store employees to pick orders and deliver them to customers’ homes.
Subway has had locations within Walmart stores for about 20 years, Damien Harmon, president of Subway North America, said in a video shown during Thursday’s presentation.
Harmon relayed the experience of one Subway franchisee that operates restaurants within several Walmart locations, who said the delivery option is “a new avenue for growth and gives us another way to meet our customers where they are.”
Executives on Thursday left the door open to expanding Walmart’s restaurant delivery.
It’s considering an integration with Sparky, Walmart’s AI shopping assistant, which would allow customers to place restaurant orders with a simple AI prompt, Poulliot said.
Other national restaurants, such as Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s, as well as regional chains such as California-based Wienerschnitzel, also have locations in some Walmart stores.
Walmart also sees a path to expand the delivery service to restaurants beyond its stores, said Greg Cathey, Walmart’s senior vice president of digital fulfillment transformation.
“You can draw a circle around most Walmart stores, and almost all quick-service restaurant brands are located within five miles,” he said.
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