Walmart Inc. and DoorDash Inc. are ending their four-year delivery partnership.
(Bloomberg) — Walmart Inc. and DoorDash Inc. are ending their four-year delivery partnership.
“We have agreed to part ways,” Walmart said in an email Friday. “We’d like to thank DoorDash for their partnership and support of our customers the past several years.”
The retail giant said it would continue to work with “multiple providers to bring delivery to our customers.” Walmart said its platform for self-employed drivers, called Spark, has become its largest delivery provider, capable of serving 84% of US households with 7,000 pickup points.
Walmart and DoorDash began working together in 2018 with a test in Atlanta. The decision to split up was reported earlier by Insider, which said DoorDash advised Walmart earlier this month that it would end the partnership in September, saying the deal “was no longer mutually beneficial.”
What Bloomberg Intelligence Says
“Online delivery companies like DoorDash and Uber have done well to expand in adjacent segments, yet the ending of DoorDash’s partnership with Walmart shows the challenge in driving scale while maintaining take rates. Basket sizes are bigger in grocery, and we believe take rates of high single digits to low teens could have been a point of contention in the alliance.”
–Mandeep Singh and Ashley Kim, technology analysts
Click here to read the research.
DoorDash will “focus on its long-term customer relationships,” according to the report. DoorDash has a separate grocery-delivery deal with Albertsons Cos., as well as deals with retail chains like Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. and Macy’s Inc. The San Francisco-based company also partnered with Meta Platforms Inc. this month to deliver items purchased from Facebook Marketplace.
“We’d like to thank Walmart for their partnership and are looking forward to continuing to build and provide support for merchants in the years ahead with our leading marketplace and platform offerings,” a spokesman said in a statement.
Walmart fell less than 1% to $138.13 at 12:46 p.m. in New York. DoorDash slid 3.3% to $64.52, similar to the declines posted by other gig-driver companies such as Lyft Inc. and Uber Technologies Inc.
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