Who Does Walmart Use For Shipping – An Overview Of Courier Services

If you’re ordering something online or purchasing something in the store and having it delivered to your home later, you might have questions about Walmart’s shipping and delivery process. 

Walmart mainly uses extensive third-party services such as FedEx and USPS for their shipping and delivery services. For local grocery and express deliveries, however, they contract with companies like DoorDash and Postmates to provide customers with a way to get Walmart savings delivered right to their door.

We dove into the Walmart shipping process to shed a little light on what you can expect when you’re getting a delivery. Whether you ordered online or are getting something from your local store, here are some things you should know about the Walmart shipping and delivery process.

How does the shipping process at Walmart work?

Items purchased online are shipped immediately, directly from the nearest Walmart warehouse where the item is in stock, to the address you provided on order. The shipping options provided are generally next-day, two-day, and standard shipping.

Depending on the store and the arrangements they have with delivery and shipping companies, additional options and features might be available.

You may also find yourself in a situation where you are shopping in the store and decide to purchase a large item you cannot fit in your vehicle and take home with you. The item is too large, and you need to find a different way to get it where you need it. Walmart can also offer shipping services directly from the store, and they work exactly like the process as if you ordered it online from the Walmart website. 

Can I have grocery items delivered from Walmart?

Yes, you can. Depending on where you live, Walmart may contract out with a local delivery service or an app-based delivery service such as DoorDash or PostMates to handle deliveries.

These essentially work by having someone pick up your order for you, saving you travel and shopping time. If you’re within a reasonable distance from a Walmart store that offers grocery items, you should be able to have them delivered to your home. 

What can I expect from my Walmart delivery?

There is a slightly different process for online customers versus customers who purchase something in-store and have it delivered afterward rather than taking it home with them. The major difference is on the backend, in the interaction between Walmart and the delivery service, so you don’t see any noticeable difference as the customer.

Regardless, an order is received and fulfilled within a matter of hours once received by the Walmart system. The order is shipped either that same day or four days after that, depending on the cadence of mailings from that particular fulfillment location.

From there, the delivery service handles the process, which typically takes another 1-3 days to arrive. Some orders may have longer estimated delivery times based on the quantity or size of items involved. 

From here, the process is then in the hands of the delivery service – which is most often FedEx, a favorite partner of Walmart. In transit updates and package, tracking services would be offered through the delivery service and not made available via Walmart.

What is the Walmart Express Delivery option?

Recently, Walmart launched a new Express Delivery option. In some areas where couriers are in high availability, the Walmart app may make available an option to select Express Delivery.

This amounts to a promise from Walmart to deliver your order within two hours or less. Contactless options are available where the delivery driver will notify you of their approach, leave your package at a pre-determined location, and notify you they’ve made their delivery. 

While the availability of the Express Delivery feature is still pretty limited, mainly available only in larger cities and metro areas, it’s a great way to take much of the headache out of delivery and logistics.

As Walmart rolls this feature out to more stores and makes it available in more areas, it should be a popular way for people to get many everyday essentials delivered directly to their doorsteps.

Who do I contact if there is an issue?

While Walmart prides itself on its product distribution process, many of the components of that process rely on human input. That means it’s prone to error, and issues are bound to arise. Given a long enough period and a high enough number of orders from Walmart, you’ll eventually run into a problem – as you would at any store. 

In the event of an issue with a delivery — say, delivery reports as being delivered, but you cannot find the package, and a delivery driver never stopped by the house; or if an item you received is not the item you placed an order for; or the delivery is later than the expected delivery date, and you have not received any update; whatever the issue, you can always find the service personnel to help.

Contact them at 1-800-WALMART. A robust customer service portal is also available on the website.

If the problem is major and/or you can’t seem to get anywhere through standard customer service channels, Walmart has an executive escalation function that might be helpful. The Walmart team makes available a handful of executive office staff emails that you might find useful in escalating your issue if it’s major enough. 

Conclusion

We wanted to know who Walmart uses for shipping and a little bit about how the shipping process works. We found that Walmart sticks to more prominent third-party companies, mainly FedEx, but also works with companies like DoorDash and Postmates to provide local delivery options, especially for groceries. 

You can expect some standard things from your interaction with Walmart throughout your delivery, and we tried to outline them for you here. Many American companies, especially retailers, are looking for ways to innovate on logistics and customer interactions.

Walmart is no different and has spent a lot of time and resources building a better and more pleasant shipping and delivery process. It remains to be seen how successful the Express Delivery program will be as they continue to scale it up.