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DoorDash is calling off its partnership with Walmart, which had the service delivering groceries and other goods from the retail chain to customers for over four years, according to a report from Insider. A source close to the situation told Insider that DoorDash notified Walmart about its decision earlier this month, citing that the partnership “was no longer mutually beneficial” and that it wants to “focus on its long-term customer relationships.”
“We have agreed to part ways with DoorDash,” Walmart spokesperson Leigh Stidham said in an emailed statement to The Verge. “We’d like to thank DoorDash for their partnership and support of our customers the past several years.” DoorDash didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.
Walmart has been busy building out its own delivery service platform
“We’d like to thank Walmart for their partnership and are looking forward to continuing to build and provide support for merchants in the years ahead with our leading Marketplace and Platform offerings,” DoorDash spokesperson Ali Musa said in a statement to The Verge.
DoorDash and Walmart’s split isn’t all that surprising. Walmart has been busy building out its own delivery service platform, Spark, which hands off grocery deliveries to its own database of gig workers, similar to the way Lyft and Uber operate. Walmart told Insider that Spark accounts for 75 percent of its deliveries and services 84 percent of households in the US. Last year, Walmart also announced that it’s also working on a white label delivery service, called GoLocal, to handle last-mile logistics and deliveries for other businesses.
Update August 20th, 3:08PM ET: Updated to add a statement from a Walmart spokesperson.
Update August 21st, 8:32AM ET: Updated to add a statement from a DoorDash spokesperson.
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