Walmart adds nighttime hours, real-time texting to Express Delivery

Late night talk shows may currently be stuck in repeats, but Walmart has something new happening in the evening.

The discounter is now offering its Express Delivery service until 10 p.m. on orders placed by 9:30 p.m. at 4,000 stores across the U.S.  Launched on a wide scale in May 2020, Express delivery allows customers to order items from Walmart’s food, consumables and general merchandise assortment such as produce, pantry staples, everyday essentials, toys and electronics for delivery in 30 to 90 minutes. 

In another new Express Delivery feature, customers can now engage in real-time text communication with a personal shopper to discuss substitutions or add items last minute. (Walmart relies on a team of 170,000 personal shoppers to pick customer orders.)

The Express Delivery service costs $10 on top of the existing delivery charge ($7.95 or $9.95), but there is no markup on item price. Members of the Walmart + subscription program, which costs $98 per year or $12.95 per month, only have to pay the $10 Express fee. The discounter removed a previous $35 minimum order requirement for the service in 2021.

To utilize late night Express Delivery, customers open the Walmart app or website, select Express Delivery and select their preferred nighttime slot.

“Whether the items are delivered late-night, really fast or the next day, the power is firmly in the hands of the customer.,” Tom Ward, executive VP & chief e-commerce officer, Walmart U.S., said in a corporate blog post. “So, whether it’s cookies, an extra set of headphones, or a new coffee pot, the closest store to customers – at any time, in any place – remains the one in their pocket: the Walmart app.”

Walmart’s delivery operation — by the numbers

Walmart achieved a number of delivery milestones in fiscal year 2023 (ended Jan. 31, 2023), including:

• Filling 3,165 miles of ocean containers in fiscal year 2023, or enough containers to span the U.S. from Los Angeles to Bangor, Maine.
• Making 248 million last-mile deliveries from 3,990 stores offering delivery.
• The Spark Delivery platform, which connects crowdsourced independent drivers with Walmart delivery opportunities, is the discounter’s largest local delivery service provider. Spark Delivery offers 84% U.S. household coverage and 15,000 pickup points, and saw 3x growth in drivers during fiscal year 2023.
• Walmart would have received ranking as a top 40 trucking firm during the fiscal year, based on backhaul revenue (cargo hauled on the return from a delivery) alone.
• Drivers making deliveries for Walmart drove more than 1 billion safe miles, or the equivalent of driving around the Earth 40,000 times, in fiscal year 2023. Thirty-seven drivers drove over 3 million safe miles each.

Headquartered in Bentonville, Ark., Walmart operates approximately 10,500 stores and clubs under 48 banners in 24 countries and e-commerce websites.