Dive Brief:

• Books-A-Million will use Walmart’s white-label delivery service, Walmart GoLocal, to provide same-day and next-day deliveries, the book retailer announced on Wednesday. 
• The company will introduce the delivery offering in the Midwest and Southeast markets and will expand nationally in the coming weeks across its 231 stores. Shoppers who place orders before 3 p.m. will be delivered the same day, and orders placed after will arrive the next day. 
• Books-A-Million customers can order products online that are in-stock at nearby stores, including books, toys, games, collectibles and select the “same-day delivery” option at checkout, per the press release.

Dive Insight:

Tapping into Walmart’s delivery network is part of Books-A-Million’s efforts to enhance the customer experience, the company said.

“Ahead of the holidays, there's no better time to introduce this offering and make it easier than ever for our customers to shop with us," Pete Zophy, senior vice president of e-commerce at Books-A-Million, said in a statement.

Using its brick-and-mortar locations for online delivery and fulfillment, “allows us to offer a fast, convenient and frictionless delivery option for our customers and is essential to our omnichannel transformation,” Olivia McDaniel, vice president of marketing at Books-A-Million, said.

Walmart unveiled its delivery-as-a-service offering, Walmart GoLocal, to other businesses in 2021. Through the service, retailers can access express, scheduled, same day and “big n’ bulky” delivery options for their customers, according to Walmart’s website. 

Since launching its Walmart GoLocal, the service has grown. By August 2022, the company executed more than 1 million deliveries, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said on an earnings call. McMillion noted that the company anticipated delivering from 5,000 retail and business locations by the end of last year. 

But as Books-A-Million relies on Walmart for same-day and next-day delivery, Amazon, known for its impact on the book industry, is expanding its same-day delivery offerings. The retailer announced in July that it had reached “the fastest Prime speeds ever” in the previous quarter in part by using machine learning algorithms to predict consumer demand.