Retail giant Walmart has come up with a new way to try and lower delivery costs. They’re currently testing a pilot program where professional drivers are replaced by store employees delivering packages on their way home from work.
This test opens up a new battleground in Walmart’s war against online retailer Amazon.com. Walmart has been aggressively seeking ways to undercut Amazon, and reducing last-mile delivery costs would be a huge win.
To reduce delivery costs, Walmart is allowing employees to opt in to a program where they are given up to 10 packages at the end of their work day. Walmart’s system then calculates a route where they will drop off the packages on their way home from work.
Walmart claims that for employees, this is a way to earn more money just by making a few stops on their commute. Details on how and how much Walmart workers are being paid for delivery are sketchy. There are conflicting reports, but TechCrunch is reporting that since the “drivers” are actually employees, they’ll be paid hourly wages and be eligible for benefits like overtime.
While the program has only been tested in three stores since April, Walmart is already calling it a “game-changer” and says that it’s incredibly popular with both employees and customers. The retail giant claims that more stores will likely be added soon.
According to a blog post by Marc Lore, Walmart is uniquely able to make this idea work due to how many stores it owns. He writes:
“Walmart has strength in numbers with 4,700 stores across the U.S. and more than a million associates. Our stores put us within 10 miles of 90% of the US population. Now imagine all the routes our associates drive to and from work and the houses they pass along the way.”
Lore has been the chief executive for Walmart’s e-commerce business since the company he founded, Jet.com, was bought by Walmart for $3.3 billion last year. The purchase was a huge move in the war against Amazon, and along with other new initiatives, has seen Walmart’s online sales skyrocket. More online sales could mean more store employees making deliveries.
Since Walmart is by far the largest retailer in the world, if this pilot proves to be successful and it’s rolled out to all Walmart stores, it could have a huge impact on how Americans buy products – and what kind of driver delivers them.
Source: walmart, businessinsider, washingtonpost, adage, usatoday, techcrunch
Image Source: wikipedia
And this is where a union would come in handy …
Earning extra cash is okay, but now what about that 65 year old that doesn’t need it? Well, GIANT corporate Walmart will tell that 65 year that he better do it or else he better get another job (only in right to work states of course … which of course are slowly becoming the new normal across the country) then this poor old person will have to add the cost to his/her insurance that he/her is using his/her car for work. In the long run, the employee loses… Thanks a lot Walmart for cheating the working man again
It’s interesting but it doesn’t say how wal mart is going to handle employee’s car insurance problem. Currently employees are insured just just to drive their car to and from work. Now it needs to be commercial insurance. And if Wal mart will not make it right, they are gonna get class action suit for suggesting that employees lie to insurance companies, getting just personal insurance
Pizza delivery guys use there own insurance and are employees. Problem solved.
Your full of B/S, that poor old 65 year old can take care of them self.
Really? That’s a real stretch and all about trolling isn’t it? Find the worst possible scenario and try and make it seem like the norm. I doubt something like that could even happen. Look at the positive!
However, the employee is still on the clock. So that means, if they get in a wreck workmans comp pays. Also, they are putting those employees lives at risk by, having them deliver,oh say, a tv that thug june bug knows about and he wants that tv. Not a good situation. How do the employees clock out? If Walmart says we’re giving you this much time,then they get hung up in a traffic jam,oh well you should have driven faster. Is there a car allowance? How will this affect their taxes? Can they write off the mileage? Will Walmart give them free oil changes and tires in lieu of the car allowance? Is tipping allow? What if the person is not home do they have to go back to the store and try again the next day? Would those extra miles be paid? Can they stop and pickup a pizza on the way home even when they deliver for Walmart??
Wal-Mart will probably create an app that ties to smartphone gps. Tracks times, locations, etc. The tech is easy, the auto insurance is the tricky part.
I’m gonna buy a couple hundred cartons of cigarettes in Ga while they are still cheap and take them out west and up north and sell them for a nice profit!!! There’s me some extra money by golly !!!
You do realize that is a class 2, felony ! Just for transporting a taxed product across state lines.( GA) Then the state you try to sell them in can charge you with possession of a controlled product, and Tax evasion. Sure looks likes like a fools errand if you get caught !
Scumbags, I HATE Walmart. They treat their employees like crap.
Read the article!
Walmart is allowing employees to opt in to a program where they are given up to 10 packages at the end of their work day. Walmart’s system then calculates a route where they will drop off the packages on their way home from work.
This is an option for the employees to do. Walmart can’t force them to do that just because of the employees car insurance coverage limitations.
What does this have to do with over the road truck drivers? Nothing. They use “professional” delivery minivans currently. And this makes headlines on The TRUCKER’S Report??? Print a trucker story next time.
I was thinking the same thing. This doesn’t sound like it affects most of us. I actually think it sounds like a good idea and program. I think those getting up in arms here need to take a deep breath and calm down.
Please stop shopping at Walmart. They are a cancer that needs to be destroyed. They treat truck drivers like dirt if you don’t drive for them. They treat their regular employees like crap as well not even letting most of them get 40 hours a week so they cannot achieve overtime nor receive medical benefits.
No one is forcing anyone to work for Walmart, last I heard.
You are so very wrong. The economy and need to make money does force people to work at jobs they don’t want. Very few people work at jobs they chose and can make a living doing it. We are slaves living under the illusion of freedom of choice. The cage can be golden so you may be ok living in it but it is a cage. Most people understand we are merely modern slaves.
Fire the person who came up with this idea.this is another’s way Walmart is taking advantage of the poor.low wages,lower hours,and and now paying there employees crumbs to use there personal vehicles to deliver there packages.example 10.00 for pro delivery service for delivery of each package and 0.50 for every package poor employee delivers
They will pay same low wages and rip you out of any overtime and 10 packages ain’t a few. 10 packages going to a few customers or 10 customers? Each package can take between 30 to 45 minutes to deliver. If customer ain’t home then what? Everyone in corporate America wants to screw the Truck Driver and eliminate the position all together. I got news for you! Not happening! Truckers are here to stay and without them everything is going to shutdown! So stop trying to save more money by deleting in your left wing brains the Truckers because it ain’t gonna work! Truckers work hard to keep America rolling! The impact of eliminating the Trucker would grossly effect the economy is so many negative ways like eliminating any and all jobs connected with it. Don’t tread on me, Truckers!
They are not using truck drivers as delivery people. They hire delivery drivers but it’s costing too much.
great comment!!!! AGREED!
Tread lightly Walmart, lol
Truck drivers are making 30 yr old wages. Factoring in inflation and all the hours a truck driver works their lucky to make 15.00 hr. Without trucks there is no Wall Street or main Street or commerce. Any way the driver’s wage can be lowered or just not keep up with inflation it will be researched and implemented. The dumb +-& drivers don’t get it. They’d rather drive more miles than have a raise. The driver is the most powerful group of people in the world if they were unified but can’t equate inflation with wages. This job can’t be shipped to a 3rd world country but, people of those countries are being brought here to help keep wages low while freight rates continue to rise. Divided we fall and the rich and corps know that. Unions are being eliminated, right to work state laws are being forced down our throats all in the name of lowering wages. The driver’s in particular just don’t understand how powerful they are TOGETHER and can’t comprehend what staying divided means – continued wage, benefit reductions when compared to inflation.
Yours is the most powerful statement of truth I have ever seen on this forum. I can’t say well done and said enough. You are a kindred soul, a driver would rather drive 15,000 miles exhausted than force the company to give him a raise so he can drive 10,000 miles safely. Screw Unions, we don’t need protection from our wonderful masters who treat us so well. I could go on but I doubt one in ten drivers understands and agrees with what you said. Sad.
Spot on brother.
oops..your calculator is busted. Let’s be generous and say the average
company driver gets 40 cpm. average of 2500 mpw. So ,1000 gross .
168 hours a week on duty(government and dispatch know you are always on duty, until the truck is in the yard,34 reset…wait , clock is always running) so take out 250/300 a week., another 100 for expenses.
For fun and profit lets say 600 take home, accounting for above.
600 divided by 168 = 3.57 an hour.
Oh Well..can anyone say “UNION”. Won’t matter tho…all the players want a smooth transition to your likely unemployment.
https://www.thetruckersreport.com/driverless-trucks-kill-4-4-million-trucking-jobs-claims-report/
Quote From Above:”So, since the ITF claims that driverless trucks could be a regular thing on roads around the world in the next 10 years, they’ve published a list of recommendations to try and soften the blow for truckers. That list includes the following:
Continue driverless truck pilot projects to test vehicles, network technology and communications protocols
Set international standards, road rules and vehicle regulations for self-driving trucks
Establish a temporary transition advisory board for the trucking industry,
Consider a temporary permit system to manage the speed of adoption and to support a just transition for displaced drivers, while ensuring fair access to markets.”
I’m a a truck driver and what your saying is so right.drivers will sit around truck stop and bitch about low pay and everything else the government is doing to us.but won’t band together to stop it makes no sense To me.
jeez Jay, manufacturing and trucking industry are ramping up and
rolling out the autonomous truck..volvo has a new autonomous
trash truck out and testing…who needs a trucker?
say, you might inquire on hiring on to walmart…they are no different and have an autonomous truck too…in the works to eliminate 4.5 million professional drivers, let’s say on the outside timeline of 2035..just to hedge a bit.. See this old movie called ” They Drive By Night”, George Raft,Bogart,Ann Sheridan….they weren’t treated any better back then either.
40 years here..safe driver
This only goes to show how Corporate America cares nothing of the hard working backbone of this Country that got them where they are today by trying to eliminate those who got you where you are only to save a few Dollars is pathetic and disgraceful and i do believe most would agree! STOP THE CORPORATE GREED! SHARE THE WEALTH! DON’T TREAD ON ME!
It’s gonna get worse as technology and low wages develop and become more prevalent. You haven’t seen anything yet.
Totally agree Jay. Someone else sees the whole picture too.
If Walmart wasn’t greedy then why are they not paying simular wages as costco? And what do you think they will pay you to deliver those 10 packages? Overtime? Walmart is very low pay and will screw out of any overtime! They have been sued more than once for overtime! That’s way the pay is but sketchy because that’s exactly what they intend to do!
I’m sure they will give them percentage with a 1099 form in the mail come tax season letting the employees know they have to pay 35% tax on everything they earned delivering those packages. Walmart invested millions in predictive analytics to screw their employees out of the chance of overtime calling them in to work during busy hours only. No way they would change that now. That family only has more collective wealth then the bottom 40% of Americans. Why give any of that back to the people who made it for them right?
This will not work for one main reason. The employee delivering the package is now using his/her car commercially which requires commercial insurance, not standard coverage or Liability will NOT suffice! If the insurance company finds out that the employee is using the car for deliveries without proper coverage, they can require you to up the coverage or cancel you. If you have an accident without proper coverage, they will NOT pay. Perfectly legal!
Walmart needs to scrap this BS and pay delivery drivers a decent wage! PERIOD!
How does Uber exist?
Uber drivers have to follow same laws, if they are not, they could be in trouble some day. If your using your vehicle for commercial use such as uber or delivering walmart packages, you need to notify your insurance company and add the coverages needed, have no idea on the state and federal regulations, but imagine there are some there. With uber, they are transporting people, I know there are state and federal regulations involved there.
Why is Uber going towards automation ? Insurance reasons, they have said as much.
All Uber drivers are covered by Uber’s commercial insurance policy while on duty. I don’t see that happening at Walmart and that’s not something that a Walmart employee will probably think to ask about before jumping at a chance to earn another $8/hour out delivering packages across their territory. Walmart is big business for the trucking industry but puts HUGE profits before any and everything else. Absolutely disgusting.
Right Jay, they certainly will mess over those drivers.
Or how pizza delivery works ??
It’s just like pizza delivery. They get their coverage changed and they’re good to go.
@Mike Stewart you don’t need a CDL to deliver 10 boxes from an SUV. Why do people make such bold claims when they are completely incorrect. Damn it that’s annoying.
This isn’t a “bold” claim. The moment you start to use your personal vehicle covered by personal insurance for commercial purposes, you need to buy commercial insurance. It’s written into every auto policy. As an insurance specialist, I can tell you his statement is 100% correct. The insurance needs to cover Walmart’s property in their vehicle. As if WM would be okay if one of their employees got into an accident and destroyed or damaged their packages. They’d rip that employee and their insurance apart. Insurance company isn’t going to pay for that claim and they’ll dump the driver.
please tell us the name of the Insurance Company you are a specialist for !!According to FMCSA, that would be considered an incidental use, and as long as the vehicle is covered for residing state coverage, there is no issue. As far as the license issue, that is not a concern of the insurance Carrier, but the state dept. of transportation.
Canada is not as lawsuit friendly as the US and we require special insurance to make commercial deliveries. I am certain the US would as well. I would bet my net worth on it. Which is about a hundred dollars.
No cdl required. But your insurance company won’t cover you if youve an at fault wreck while using your personal vehicle in a business mode. In Illinois, there is a spot on the IL1050 (crash report form filed by police departments with IDOT) that requires the investigating officer to determine the nature of vehicle use. One choice is business purposes. Nothing to do with FMCSA, but u can bet the good hands like a rock save 15% folks have an interest in this…
Program will only last until autonomous car is complete. Then walmart will do away with it.
Will the autonomous car have a catapult to get your package to the porch? How about to a fifth floor apartment? Humans still needed.
Will autonomous cars drop the package off in the street?
They will tweak the bugs out of it. Adding an insurance rider is no problem. This is just local delivery like Fedex or drone. Safeway did this. Everyone is getting into the act.
Safeway delivery drivers are not using their personal vehicles -they’re driving company vehicles owned, maintained, and insured by Safeway.
Even still, in March 2018, Safeway was ordered to pay damages to customers in a judgement against them, as a result of a class-action lawsuit.
There’s another problem that Walmart would face, relying on employees to use their personal vehicles to make deliveries. Like, Uber, Walmart would rely on an app to distinguish between “personal use” of the employee’s vehicle, and “use-for-work” time –for the purpose of commercial liability auto insurance coverage. Uber’s requirements with respect to the year of manufacture of the vehicle –aren’t because they want customers to ride in style. It’s directly related to how much risk the insurer is willing to assume in coverage.
First issue with this any deliveries completed by an employee for company business will require commercial insurance if they are being paid for the deliveries…. Walmart is good at going around these issues but all drivers should start reporting this to the insurance commission every chance you get
I think it’s a great idea, as a local delivery driver sometimes at the end of my day I’ll take a small package and deliver it on my way home as well. I actually enjoy doing this as it basically pays for my commute home!
Sure there’s certain drawbacks, like the insurance mentioned above; and who knows how it would affect my CSA if I were to somehow get popped by DOT… Overall tho it does work for me, maybe not for everyone but the article does say it’s a voluntary employee program.
Amazon wanted to start their own L.T.L. company even went as far as to pay some of their employees to go to C.D.L. school and most of them left and found other jobs after getting their C.D.L. I personally know someone who was a supervisor in Hazleton Pennsylvania. after he got his C.D.L. he quit got a truck driving job almost got fired a couple times for getting into crashes.
but Amazon’s plan never got off the ground because of the driver shortages.
And driverless trucks one day maybe that may happen but there are some jobs a computer won’t be able to do Like delivering oil or gasoline Jet fuel many other things that A human will be needed to make the call for problem-solving.
I did not see this mentioned, what about gas. Making up to 10 deliveries on the way home will take more gas. Is walmart paying for gas? If not, the employee is doing this for about free. I sure hope walmart is paying for the gas somehow.
I also hope walmart is instructing their employees to change their insurance to cover the employee. I can see the writing on the wall, I hit this sports car in the driveway while making a walmart delivery, insurance company says your not insured for that kind of use, claim denied.
Also, for the customers perspective….is the packages going to be insured against damage, lost or stolen? Are the employees pre-screened and determined to be safe to go to peoples houses, or are they just sending any yahoo to your house?
I can see this being a nightmare for walmart.
If they got .50 cts a mile deduction on taxes for delivering packages that more than covers fuel unless you have a gas guzzler. Several ways around it or to be correct to get the job done, some may not like it some may.
It could maybe be called using private car for work. .
So, your saying getting a tax deduction will cover the extra fuel used. I am betting most walmart workers doing this probably just get the standard deduction on their taxes, which they would get anyway. Lets say maybe they do get enough to itemize the milage, I am just going to throw out easy numbers, lets say it is 500 miles for the year. That would be $250 deduction on their “taxable” income. All that does is reduces their income that is taxable by $250, which probably won’t make a dent in what their tax bill will be. so another words, the employee would have $250 in out of pocket expenses and not receive the full $250 back. I will then go a step further on this, lets say it will give them a tax break, your saying they need to wait a year to get their money that they are spending extra for their job. Would you like to take money out of your pocket for your company and wait a year to get it reimbursed? I think most would say hell no.
Walmart needs to pay for use of the vehicle and fuel for that employee as an expense reimbursement, not as part of their wages, as wages get taxed, this is an expense reimbursement, not taxable. If they make it part of their wages, they are screwing the worker.
This is just one more way the industry is changing. Those who deny it and keep spouting the same, “we are truckers, ‘they’ can’t do without us” is the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand.
Wake up! Industry is here to make a profit. The very first directive of any business is profit and without it…
Many years ago, I was an apprentice hot type setter and letterpress operator. Then came litho and letterpress was gone. I had a large litho printing operation and came the internet…80% of printing disappeared.
I had 13 trucks and had expanded into freight for my same customers.
Sold out this time. Now I work for a large freight company and I see their efforts to prepare for autonomous vehicles.
Its coming! trust me, I see it coming.
So go ahead…learn hot type, invest into litho…deny freight is changing.
You’ll be on the outside looking in and saying, “what happened?!”
Just like with lift and uber..dont hear anything about walmart picking up that pesky libility insurance when delivering those packages…wait until a package deliverer gets in an accident still working for walmart delivering packages..will your personal insurance cover you.. as you are still an employee working with your personal car or pick up and your vehicle is now a commercial vehicle..and i sure dont read anyplace where walmart is going to pay for the use of that vehicle..so some poor smuck is going to wear out their car getting paid an hourly wage as they would at work..delivering packages…just where does this have major problems starting with everything wrong and nothing good happening…kind oflike the pizza delivery guy..thinking they will make gas money off of tips..but what bout the wear and tear of your car?
Talk about taking your work home! Jeez!!! 🙂
As a former pizza delivery guy from my experience. I was rearended by a drunk driver lost my car and my insurance, and I was off duty. Uber and Lyft suck you in with the promises of big money however because you are using your vehicle as a vehicle for hire you are lawfully required to carry adequate insurance which means for those people carrying basic liability now have to upgrade to full coverage liability and/or proper commercial liability to cover the packages not your vehicle. Which means separate insurance now you have to pay for two insurance policies. Wal-Mart is not going to assist it’s employees in paying for an entirely different secondary insurance policy. Oh and leave us not forget thieves, rapists and murderers hiding under the Wal-Mart Blue vest. A safety nightmare. Unknown vehicles riding around in unfamiliar neighborhoods and in high crime areas. At odd times of the night what if your shift ends at midnite. Or you’ve been working all night and your shift ends at 7:00am in the morning. Yeah some poor smuck had a goodnights rest and gets FUBAR from a Wal-Mart delivery driver who isn’t being governed by CSA rules because they’re in a POV personal noncommercial vehicle doing work designated for commercial. Smart move. Oh yeah real smart. Also there are people driving now with canceled insurance policies causing accidents killing people’s and/or seriously injuring decent people. Yeah this is a great idea for Wallace World Enterprise’s. Get a clue and grow a brain.
If one of these employees get in an accident while delivering these packages I hope whoever they get an accident with takes everything they own and then turns around and Sue’s Walmart. See the way I look at it they are driving for a paycheck with that being said they should be required under FMCSA to at least have a class C CDL and then along with that they would need a medical card. Which in turn would mean the vehicle should have commercial tags and insurance so like I said take everything they own then the rest of them won’t do it
PS don’t forget the logbook
You don’t need a medical card to operate a personal type vehicle, which is what they would be driving.
Also no CDL needed . and a rider on insurance. Question is safety in delivering package .
This is delivering items that customers order online and have shipped to the store for free. But the customer will then have to drive to WM to pick up the item. So this is a smart move on their part if it will work.
I thought Uber was supposed to be a great deal. My dad broke down in Nashville last night, needed a taxi to take him to the parts store. Trip was under four miles round trip. Uber wanted $45, taxi charged $10. And Walmart and Uber can both implode for all I care.
My guess is the main targets for these delivery jobs are the “VENDORS” not the meat cutting deli people or Lisa the cutie pie cashier. Also being the corporate giant that they are, once this goes blasting off into success, they might break off the deliveries into routes and then sell the routes to the vendors or whoever has the $cash$; Walmart has the power to cut prices across the board which attracts customers; who cares about employees; all they want is a job anyway so they give it to them, that being said if they drum up routes that will make you $100K, $200K , $225K and up, this is nothing but net, a win -win for Walmart and the vendor who has the $50K $60K or the $75K to buy the route…..I’m in!!!
How’s that old saying go; if you can’t beat them?
My opinion is prepare if u’r in the delivery business, the whole industry is headed in this direction.
Can not believe all the experts, who have not a clue. Walmart is only trying to service a small niche group of customers, for what ever reason making the trip to the store creates a hardship. I am one of those people. I am on oxygen 24 x 7, and mobility impaired, making a trip to Walmart for me is a Major outing. They have considered starting a service for people like me, which is totally voluntary, as far as the employee is concerned, and they are doing research to make sure the deliveries are made on the employee way home. The thing most do not understand is the group of people I now belong to, Creates its own following. Because I go to Walmart at a time when it is not crowded, and at a slower pace, I am familiar with employees in my local store and they with me. I have no reservation about a Walmart employee coming in to my home, and it really upsets me that anyone would find fault with people that have the self respect and the fortitude to get up and go to work each day, and try to make life a little less difficult , with a simple act of kindness, for a group of people, who would be most grateful !!!.
No one is finding any fault with the employees Walmart delegates for making these deliveries, Billy D.
Deaconblues62 is mistaken in his assumption that vendors will be hired for these deliveries. Vendors are not Walmart employees. Walmart employees (the majority of whom earn $10- 11/hr) –the deli workers, the cashiers, et. al –are the sole “targets” for these delivery “jobs.” Walmart has made this clear.
There’s nothing “niche” nor “small” about the size of the “group” of customers Walmart is targeting. Home delivery service has been an exploding market for quite some time now. While it’s true persons who are disabled or otherwise immobile _need_ this type of service more than any other demographic –it’s simply not a significant enough consumer market for Walmart to justify tailoring such a service just ‘to be nice,’ let alone as a simple corporate policy “act of kindness.”
There simply aren’t enough disabled, homebound folks to make it profitable. Disabled folks can thank e-commerce-consumers for expanding their limited options for them, not Walmart. Food delivery services like UberEATS, GrubHub, and DoorDash have given way to anything-delivery services like Favor, UberRUSH, Postmates, and of course, Amazon Prime Now.
Walmart is simply scrambling to adapt and hold onto the customers it’s been losing to Amazon in the age of e-commerce. Amazon is hurting Walmart -not by taking their disabled-customer base, but instead, because Convenience Sells.
IN the very lead of the article it says the program is VOLUNTARY !
Voluntary as in Walmart pays jack squat for the deliveries ? How Walmart of them. Literally, if true, the biggest rip off the US has ever seen, if true. Asking for employees to do this as volunteers for a family that could easily pay for said service. It can’t be without compensation. It just can’t or the end of the world is near. I get the humanitarian side as Billy D. pointed out, but these deliveries must be making the walmart worker some money.
Some will assume that this article is talking about replacing the drivers in the Walmart fleet. We don’t deliver to customers, we deliver to the stores. The professional drivers that these Walmart employees will be replacing will be the FedEx, UPS, USPS, and other companies that deliver to your door.
Order an item that is sitting in the Walmart warehouse and it goes on the truck that night, arrives at the store the next evening, unloaded by 4pm, arrives at the customer that evening. One day service. The way it is now the item will have to wait for one of the professional services to pick it up to take it to their warehouse and resort the item maybe 100 miles away and then on two trucks if you’re lucky back to the customer and it takes two to three days.
It is much cheaper for Walmart to use their own fleet.
However, not all online orders are shipped from a warehouse distribution center to a store –the retail stores are also online fulfillment centers themselves, and often _already_ have the item in the store closest to the customer. (of course, Walmart’s trucks in most cases, brought it there in the first place).
If the third party delivering to the customer’s door has its nearest sorting facility 100 miles away from the store –Walmart’s not shipping those orders to stores, but instead having the third party pickup and transport from the item’s warehoused location to transport directly to the customer. This is possible, logistically, because Walmart expanded on and optimized their existing distribution network by adding strategically located e-commerce distribution centers, in addition to utilizing the thousands of existing distribution centers and retail stores as part of their online fulfillment network.
This feasibly could impact Walmart’s fleet of drivers (more orders going directly to the customer from the warehouse, is less inventory for Walmart truckers to deliver to the stores). That wouldn’t be Walmart drivers being replaced by store employees on their way home from work, though. Instead, it’s FedEx and USPS drivers, replacing Walmart drivers.
Nobody is more committed to avoiding this than Walmart. Walmart’s fleet of trucks and its drivers are much cheaper than FedEx or USPS. Walmart’s primary concern, is cutting its last-mile expenditure.
Which explains why so many Sam’s Club retail stores have been closed and will be re-opened as ecommerce mini-fulfillment centers. And, more importantly, the reason why hundreds of FedEx mini-sort facilities are slated to open up in Walmarts across the country (a year later, and the pilot program to exploit low-wage-cashier-employees-onsite doubling as low-wage-couriers-to-and-from-work was a hit and a miss).