Walmart Canada and Instacart, the San Francisco-based online grocery delivery company, announced a national expansion that brings on-demand delivery from 200 Walmart locations across the country in as fast as an hour.
The partnership builds on a 17-store same-day-delivery pilot in the Greater Toronto Area and Winnipeg announced in September. Products available include Walmart’s range of fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy, as well as the brand’s health and beauty products, household goods, and various CPG goods like pet food and baby-related products.
In a release, Lee Tappenden, president and CEO of Walmart Canada, said expanding the company’s relationship with Instacart provides customers with even more time-saving ways to shop at the retailer. Concurrent with today’s news, Walmart also said that in-store pickup for online grocery orders – currently available in-store at 175 Walmart stores – will expand to 190 stores by the end of January of next year. Walmart also offers grocery pickup at nine urban PenguinPickUp locations in the GTA, as well as next-day delivery in the GTA through its website. Grocery products are currently available in-store at 340 Walmart locations in Canada.
Instacart previously partnered with Loblaw on grocery delivery in 2017, which has since expanded to over 250 locations in Canada and includes delivery of grocery and OTC medications at 60 Shoppers Drug Mart locations in Ontario as of June. Empire announced its own delivery service for Sobeys and IGA earlier this year by working with Ocado, while Metro has been developing its delivery offering in-house (though it has partnered with Uber Eats on delivery of ready-made meals).
Instacart also launched delivery with high-end grocer Pusateri’s at the beginning of the year, while five GTA Staples locations began piloting an Instacart program in April.