Dive Brief:
- Office Depot Inc. announced same-day delivery for Atlanta, Los Angeles and the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area, Internet Retailer reported. The service, which will begin in September, will add more cities by the end of 2017.
- The office supplies retailer intends to match a comparable service to that launched by Staples in June, 2016. Staples currently offers same-day delivery via its Rush service in Boston, Chicago, Dallas and New York. Staples may extend service to Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.
- Both retailers are presumably competing with Amazon, which currently offers approximately 80,000 office supply SKUs, and delivers via Amazon Prime (two-day shipping) and Prime Now (same-day grocery and food delivery) to certain cities, including Atlanta, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.
Dive Insight:
Competition with Amazon is driving many retailers to offer better shipping options, and as Amazon expands rapidly nationwide, even specialty retailers are having to up their game, making products available within the shortest possible time span.
In fact, a variety of retailers have jumped on the same-day delivery bandwagon, including Walmart and Wegmans, which delivers in parts of Rochester, New York, including Canandaigua. Although the service is not free, and some of the items chosen may not be the most thrifty of options, enough interest has been generated to keep Instacart, which provides the delivery service, busy enough to expand its customer base to include Costco, Petco, Price Rite and CVS.
As this e-commerce trend continues, brick-and-mortar retailers may need to invest even more in their online presence as well as picking, packing, storing and shipping processes to meet buyers' demand for immediate fulfillment.
