Walmart Stores said it has acquired Parcel Inc. to ramp up its last-mile delivery operations in New York City.
“We plan to leverage Parcel for last mile delivery to customers in New York City – including same-day delivery – for both general merchandise as well as fresh and frozen groceries from Walmart and Jet," Nate Faust, senior vice president of Walmart U.S. eCommerce Supply Chain, said in a blog post.
Parcel delivers packages the same-day, overnight, and in scheduled two-hour windows.
New York City is the top market for both Jet and Walmart.com, which makes it “the perfect place for high-impact innovation,” Faust said.
A purchase price was not disclosed. As it competes with Amazon and others in the e-commerce space, Walmart bought retailer Bonobos Inc for $310 million earlier this year and internet retailer Jet.com for about $3 billion in 2016.
Faust praised Parcel’s automated operations, and its ability to quickly sort and load packages for delivery routes.
“Delivery is increasingly one of the most important elements for today’s online shoppers, as demands for speed, flexibility, and reliability continue to grow,” Faust said.
In a posting on LinkedIn, Parcel founder and CEO Jesse Kaplan wrote “the three years have been the most terrifying, thrilling, exhausting, entertaining, challenging, and exciting of my life, and I couldn’t be prouder of my team for what we’ve built. We are beyond thrilled to be joining forces with the largest retailer in the world, and I can’t wait for this next chapter.”
