FedEx making 500 Walmart stores the locations for its outlets
FedEx Senior V.P. Integrated Marketing Patrick Fitzgerald on the busy time of year shipping consumers’ holiday gifts.
After a successful pilot program, FedEx Corp. (FDX) will place 500 FedEx Office locations in select U.S. Walmart (WMT) stores. The rollout will occur over the next 24 months.
Walmart-based FedEx Office locations will offer customers access to packing, shipping and printing solutions while also letting customers direct their packages to be held at any Walmart-based FedEx Office location for up to five business days, either directly or by redirecting using FedEx Delivery Manager.
Walmart has been stepping up its competitiveness with Amazon (AMZN). In early February the Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon is preparing to launch a delivery service to compete directly with UPS and FedEx, noting that Amazon was planning to undercut UPS and FedEx on pricing.
Meanwhile, DHL said last Thursday that it is launching a same-day and next-day delivery service for online retailers in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. The service will expand to Dallas, Atlanta, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., by the end of the year, and will add more cities over the next few years.
The U.S. shipping market has been dominated by UPS and FedEx for about a decade, and recently the strong growth in e-commerce has bolstered demand for domestic shipping.