{"id":4588,"date":"2026-10-07T10:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T10:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/07\/walmarts-biggest-advantage-over-amazon-is-under-attack\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T10:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T10:26:12","slug":"walmarts-biggest-advantage-over-amazon-is-under-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/07\/walmarts-biggest-advantage-over-amazon-is-under-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"Walmart&#039;s biggest advantage over Amazon is under attack"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Within five miles of my South Florida home, Walmart has four Neighborhood Markets and three Supercenters. Even my close friends who live in rural Tallahassee, in a home where they cannot get food delivered, have a Walmart within a few miles.<\/p>\n<p>They don&#x2019;t have a hospital or convenience store within that range, but Walmart is nearby.<\/p>\n<p>The retail giant makes a claim on its website that shares one of the chain&#x2019;s keys to success: &#x201C;5,200 stores and clubs are within 10 miles of approximately 90% of the population.&#x201D;<\/p>\n<p>This geographic edge has helped the chain compete with Amazon. Two-day shipping, one-day shipping, and even same-day shipping don&#x2019;t guarantee the ability to get what you need immediately, which Walmart offers many Americans.<\/p>\n<p>Amazon, however, isn&#x2019;t simply letting Walmart keep that advantage, even as the chain has largely dialed back its efforts to build out physical stores.<\/p>\n<h2>Amazon wants to deliver faster<\/h2>\n<p>Amazon has been investing heavily to speed up delivery and the company shared some stats and information in a March press release.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>1-hour delivery is already available in hundreds of cities and towns across the U.S., and 3-hour delivery is live in more than <strong>2,000 cities and towns<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Customers will see items eligible for <strong>1-hour and 3-hour delivery<\/strong> throughout their regular Same-Day shopping experience via new messaging next to product names. <\/li>\n<li>To make it even easier for customers to browse this selection, we&#x2019;ve also added &#x201C;in 1 hour&#x201D; or &#x201C;in 3 hours&#x201D; search filters and a <strong>dedicated storefront shopping page<\/strong> in areas where these options are available.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#x201C;We saw an opportunity to use our unique operational expertise and delivery network to help make customers&#x2019; lives a little easier while unlocking even more value for Prime members,&#x201D; said Udit Madan, senior vice president of Worldwide Operations at Amazon.<\/p>\n<h2>Amazon is building new warehouses<\/h2>\n<p>These changes are part of a bigger effort by Amazon to speed up its delivery times.<\/p>\n<p>&#x201C;Amazon is in the middle of a five-year build-out called Project Mercury: 1,000+ new same-day fulfillment centers by 2031, aimed squarely at Walmart&#x2019;s biggest structural advantage, proximity,&#x201D; according to Consumer Edge. <\/p>\n<p>Consumer Edge used credit and debit card data to show what&#x2019;s already happening in the first markets where that capacity has gone live. Key data points include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Same-day capacity is driving measurably more orders: <\/strong>In metros where Amazon opened a new same-day fulfillment center (Rochester, Pittsburgh, Jacksonville), order frequency rose 18%, from 1.6 to 1.9 orders per shopper per week between first half 2025 and first half 2026. Markets that gained same-day grocery delivery (Boise, Omaha, Salt Lake City, among others) rose 11%. Markets with no new same-day capacity were flat.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The lift is concentrated in Amazon&#x2019;s heaviest shoppers: <\/strong>The share of shoppers ordering three or more times a week rose from 13% to 19% in new-fulfillment-center markets and from 18% to 22% in new same-day-grocery markets, versus no change in markets without same-day capacity.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Walmart hasn&#x2019;t lost a step yet: <\/strong>In-store visit frequency held at roughly 1.5 visits per shopper per week across every market group Consumer Edge studied, including the metros where Amazon just got dramatically faster. Amazon&#x2019;s gains currently look incremental, not share-shifting.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure><figcaption>Uber Eats delivers from grocery stores, CVS, and liquor stores.<\/p>\n<p>Shutterstock<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>Maybe Amazon isn&#x2019;t going after Walmart directly<\/h2>\n<p>Despite my proximity to Walmart, I  rarely shop there, as I&#x2019;m now a Walmart+ member. Those members get free same-day shipping.<\/p>\n<p>I am, however, an Instacart member and Uber Eats member. Since Amazon does not offer same-day delivery in my market (I am a Prime member, too), if I need something fast, I use one of those.<\/p>\n<p>I&#x2019;m not a Target Shipt member, which offers same-day delivery, but Uber Eats offers many Target items at in-store prices, so even though Target is closer to me than any of Walmart&#x2019;s Supercenters, I will often have items delivered by Uber Eats.<\/p>\n<p>That&#x2019;s also a tactic I use when ordering bottled water, Gatorade, or anything else bulky I don&#x2019;t want to lug to my car.<\/p>\n<p>RTM Nexus CEO Dominick Miserandino told TheStreet that Amazon&#x2019;s actions are all about stopping customers from using other services or retailers. <\/p>\n<p>&#x201C;Amazon isn&#x2019;t spending billions just so it can brag about delivering something in an hour. Speed changes buying behavior. If I know Amazon can get me toothpaste, diapers or an HDMI cable this afternoon, I stop thinking about driving to Walmart or Target. The real payoff is getting customers to use Amazon for more of those everyday purchases,&#x201D; he shared in a message to TheStreet.<\/p>\n<h2>Amazon has changed customer delivery expectations<\/h2>\n<p>In a broad sense, speed expectations have tightened. <\/p>\n<p>Consumers now expect free delivery in an average of 2.7 days &#x2014; down from 3.5+ days in prior years &#x2014; with expectations varying sharply by category, from 0.9 days for grocery and food to 3.2 days for large general merchandise, according to a study from Alix Partners.<\/p>\n<p>&#x201C;The speed and free shipping expectations consumers hold today were once reserved for Amazon Prime members. They are now the floor &#x2014; not the ceiling &#x2014; for every category of retail,&#x201D; said AlixPartners&#x2019; Marc Iampieri, who serves as partner and managing director, as well as global co-lead for Shipping, Logistics, &amp; Infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p>Ninety-seven percent of Americans used a convenience service (food delivery, takeout, grocery delivery, etc.) in the last month, and more than half say their spending has increased in the last five years, according to a Sept. 16 survey from Finance Buzz, conducted in partnership with Bank of America.<\/p>\n<p>Key findings included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Americans value an hour of free time at $87 on average, more than double the $37.62 average hourly wage reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. <\/li>\n<li>68% have abandoned a delivery order after seeing the total cost with fees, a figure that climbs to 78% among Gen Z and falls to 41% among baby boomers.<\/li>\n<li>The average American will pay $9.49 in food delivery fees before deciding to pick up the order instead.<\/li>\n<li>85% of those surveyed pay for at least one convenience membership, averaging $22 a month, or $264 a year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p align=\"center\"><strong>Related: Casey&#x2019;s kills another rival convenience store chain brand<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Within five miles of my South Florida home, Walmart has four Neighborhood Markets and three Supercenters. Even my close friends who live in rural Tallahassee, in a home where they cannot get food delivered, have a Walmart within a few miles. They don&#x2019;t have a hospital or convenience store within that range, but Walmart is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smartinvestingschronicle.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}