Walmart starts delivery service for other firms

Walmart Inc will start delivering goods for other companies, a bet that its logistics prowess will let the world's largest retailer broaden its business.

The new service, dubbed Walmart GoLocal, will offer merchants ranging from local bakeries to national auto-supply stores deliveries across the US at what the company calls "competitive pricing." The retailer already has some contracts with clients, Walmart said in a release on Tuesday.

The delivery service is CEO Doug McMillon's latest move to diversify Walmart's revenue away from its core operations amid intense competition from Amazon.com Inc and other rivals. In January it created a fintech startup, and in recent years Walmart has bulked up its digital advertising business, which it now calls Walmart Connect, along with unveiling a fulfillment service for merchants who sell goods on its third-party marketplace site.

Some of those moves mimicked Amazon, and Walmart's new delivery service puts it in a position that Amazon is familiar with -- competing against longstanding logistics providers United Parcel Service Inc and FedEx Corp. Amazon has built up a massive delivery apparatus, with volumes in the logistics arm of its business more than doubling over the past two years, the company said in an earnings call last month.

Walmart's varied attempts to dig new profit pools have achieved mixed results. While its advertising business is thriving by all accounts, the company has provided no information on the performance of its Walmart+ subscription programme that debuted last year. An earlier venture into streaming movies, under the Vudu brand, was sold off last year.