Walgreens is launching same-day delivery with partner Instacart, starting in its home state of Illinois and rolling out to its 8,000 stores nationwide by the spring, beginning with express stops in Southeast Florida, Dallas, Atlanta, Washington D.C. and New York.
Through the partnership, tens of thousands of items including over-the-counter medications, health and wellness, beauty and personal care, household essentials and convenience products will be available to customers in as little as an hour. The block of SKUs listed for same-day delivery will also expand over time, Walgreens said.
Walgreens already has delivery partnerships in place with DoorDash and Postmates, so this deal completes the same-day trifecta.
“Convenience is at the core of what we do and Walgreens is thrilled to be partnering with Instacart to bring customers a simple and trusted same-day delivery option for the products they need right to their door,” said Stefanie Kruse, Vice President, Digital Commerce and Omnichannel at Walgreens in a release. “This collaboration builds upon several other recent steps in our digital transformation to deliver health expertise to customers in new channels, which is timely given shifts in customer needs during the pandemic.”
Rival CVS, which counts Instacart as well as Shipt as delivery partners, was ahead of the same-day curve, launching the service in 2017.
Walgreens said it is on a path to cut $2.2 billion in expenses by 2022, and as part of that is in the midst of a wave of hundreds of store closures. As of October 2020, 200 locations had been shuttered, according to the Chicago Tribune.
In addition to the delivery partnerships, Walgreens has partnered with FedEx to allow both online order pickup and returns drop-off across the entire chain, as a way to provide customer convenience and draw additional foot traffic.
Most recently, discount retail chain Family Dollar announced a partnership with Instacart, rolling out same-day delivery at its 6,000 U.S. stores after piloting it at 275 retail locations in late 2020.