沃尔玛联手棒约翰推出餐饮外卖、叫板 DoorDash/Uber Eats——系9月10日旧闻的韩媒转述

Walmart, the largest retailer in the United States, is entering the restaurant delivery market. By extending its own app from groceries, household goods and prescription drugs to food orders, the company now competes directly with delivery platforms such as DoorDash and Uber Eats.
The picture differs from that of hypermarkets in South Korea, where regulations block overnight and weekend deliveries and limit continuous delivery service. Facing growing demand for instant delivery, including quick commerce, offline retailers in Korea are choosing to list on delivery apps rather than build their own platforms.
Walmart launched the food delivery service on the 10th in partnership with pizza chain Papa John's, Bloomberg reported on the 13th. Customers who order through Walmart's app or website receive their food within 30 minutes. They can order food on its own or have it delivered together with other items in their cart. The service is starting in select areas and will expand to thousands of Papa John's locations across the United States.
Deliveries are handled by Spark drivers, the network of independent contractors that Walmart operates directly. Walmart manages order intake, fee structures and driver dispatch. Subway and Dunkin', earlier partners, were brands operating inside Walmart stores, but Papa John's is an outside brand. Analysts say Walmart has begun bringing restaurant operators onto its platform as sellers. "We are focused on broadening restaurant options and giving customers more choice," said Greg Cathey, senior vice president of Walmart's e-commerce division.
If Walmart takes on the role of a quick commerce platform itself, sales of Walmart products are expected to grow along with outside food orders. Walmart products are currently included in 65% of the company's restaurant orders, according to Bloomberg. Walmart has also added prescription drugs and refrigerated medicines to its same-day delivery lineup.
Walmart's expansion into an ordering and delivery platform rests on its stores and delivery network. About 90% of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles, or about 16 kilometers, of one of Walmart's roughly 4,600 stores. The company uses each store as a logistics base while also running a "GoLocal" business that rents out its driver network to other retailers.
The environment differs from that facing hypermarkets in South Korea. Under the Distribution Industry Development Act, which took effect in 2012, Korean hypermarkets cannot operate from midnight to 10 a.m. and must designate two mandatory closing days a month. Early-morning delivery based at stores is impossible, and deliveries stop entirely twice a month. There were 307 hypermarkets in South Korea as of July, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, but their function as urban logistics centers remains limited because regulations prevent continuous operation.
As a result, Korean hypermarkets and supermarket chains known as SSMs are meeting rising instant-delivery demand by listing on outside delivery platforms instead of running their own apps and driver networks. "To compete with platforms that operate 24 hours a day, delivery also has to run 24 hours a day, and the law blocks that premise," an industry official said. "Listing on existing delivery apps is the realistic choice."