Walmart de Mexico Is Focused On Grocery Deliveries

Walmart de Mexico’s new head of eCommerce, Ignacio Caride, is focusing on growing the retailer’s grocery deliveries to differentiate from rivals including Amazon and MercadoLibre.

In an interview with Reuters, Caride said by offering online orders of food and household items, Walmex can prompt customers to look for non-grocery items on the website or mobile app. “Leveraging the food and supermarket delivery part adds a very big competitive advantage,” said Caride in the interview with Reuters. “It generates a shopping habit.” His comments come as more retailers in Mexico have been boosting their efforts to sell things over the Internet. That has put pressure on retailers in the country to be more efficient when it comes to logistics, offering broad inventories and having speedy shipping. Currently, only 3 percent of all retail sales in Mexico are via the Internet, which means there are a lot of opportunities for retailers online. Walmex is aiming to be a leader both in the physical world and online in Mexico, noted Reuters.

Walmex has 2,390 stores in Mexico, which puts it in a good position to offer fast delivery of groceries, something that parent Walmart in the U.S. is doing. Walmex is meeting its delivery goals by partnering with Cornershop, a delivery service startup for grocery stores. But even given Walmex’s close proximity to shoppers, the company faces challenges — if they are able to deliver groceries quickly, consumers are going to expect non-food items to get to their doorsteps in the same manner. Valentin Mendoza, an analyst at Banorte, told Reuters that Walmex is going to have to make sure more than just food arrives at doorsteps in a speedy time frame. “If you commit to having the groceries arrive in one day at your house, it’s possible consumers will expect to also get a television in one day,” he said.