Walmart to Boost Pay for Independent Delivery Drivers
Walmart will pay independent delivery drivers new financial incentives to pick up online orders at its U.S. stores and deliver them to shoppers during the holiday season. The move is part of Walmart's strategy for boosting sales to upper-income households and competing with e-commerce rival Amazon.com, which is selling more everyday essentials to shoppers that it delivers in a day or two. Walmart relies on a loosely organized network of thousands of freelance drivers who download a Walmart-designed app, Spark Driver, to their cellphones. Gridwise, a data-analytics company that helps drivers track their earnings, reports that from October 2023 to September 2024, Spark Drivers earned a gross average of $21.90 per hour and $12.26 per trip.
Total Retail's Take: In the battle for e-commerce market share with its top competitor, Amazon, Walmart is trying to up its supply chain and logistics game to win over shoppers. But to do that it needs a network of drivers to get goods from its stores to customers' homes quickly and cost efficiently. Therefore, Walmart is adding perks for its Spark Drivers in the belief that it will grow the size of the talent pool and keep them satisfied and effective at their jobs. In addition to growing gross sales, Walmart is focused on improving its e-commerce margins by delivering more goods to shoppers' homes directly from its stores using Spark Driver. This is a strategy reliant on having a sizable and reliable driver network. More pay is a surefire way to achieving that.
