Walmart is expanding its 'unlimited' grocery delivery service nationwide - CNBC

A man pushes his shopping cart past bread for sale at a Walmart Supercenter store in Rosemead, California on May 23, 2019.

Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images

Walmart said Thursday it will be expanding a new "unlimited" grocery delivery service, which costs users $98 annually, to 1,400 stores this fall.

The biggest retailer in the world had earlier this year been testing what it calls Delivery Unlimited in four markets — Houston, Miami, Salt Lake City and Tampa. As part of the nationwide rollout, it said the service will be available in 200 metro areas where it already has regular grocery delivery, reaching more than 50% of the U.S. population, by the end of the year.

Walmart's Delivery Unlimited gives shoppers the option to pay either $98 per year or $12.95 per month to receive unlimited grocery delivery orders to their homes. Typically, on an order-by-order basis, delivery would cost an additional $9.99. In addition to fresh produce, meat and bakery items, some general merchandise is offered under the new unlimited service, the company said.

"We've been investing in our online grocery business by quickly expanding our Grocery Pickup and Delivery services. Delivery Unlimited is the next step in that journey," Tom Ward, senior vice president of Walmart's digital operations in the U.S., said in a statement. "By pairing our size and scale and these services we're making Walmart the easiest place to shop."

Walmart said it has more than 45,000 personal shoppers helping it pack grocery orders for customers every day. It says these people must complete three weeks of training before they can begin that work.

This nationwide rollout builds on a strong grocery business that Walmart has already been amassing in the U.S. It has an online grocery order pickup option, for example, available at nearly 3,000 stores today.

Other retailers offer similar options, with which Walmart is trying to compete.

Target owns delivery platform Shipt, where users can pay $99 per year to have certain items, including groceries, delivered same day. Amazon's Prime membership has an annual fee of $119, in order to have perks like free same-day delivery and discounts at Whole Foods Market. FreshDirect and Instacart are other competitors in the space.

Meanwhile, Walmart is also this fall testing delivering groceries directly inside customers' homes.

Walmart shares are up nearly 25% this year.

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https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/12/walmart-expands-its-unlimited-grocery-delivery-service-nationwide.html

2019-09-12 09:31:20Z
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Walmart is expanding its 'unlimited' grocery delivery service nationwide - CNBC

A man pushes his shopping cart past bread for sale at a Walmart Supercenter store in Rosemead, California on May 23, 2019.

Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images

Walmart said Thursday it will be expanding a new "unlimited" grocery delivery service, which costs users $98 annually, to 1,400 stores this fall.

The biggest retailer in the world had earlier this year been testing what it calls Delivery Unlimited in four markets — Houston, Miami, Salt Lake City and Tampa. As part of the nationwide rollout, it said the service will be available in 200 metro areas where it already has regular grocery delivery, reaching more than 50% of the U.S. population, by the end of the year.

Walmart's Delivery Unlimited gives shoppers the option to pay either $98 per year or $12.95 per month to receive unlimited grocery delivery orders to their homes. Typically, on an order-by-order basis, delivery would cost an additional $9.99. In addition to fresh produce, meat and bakery items, some general merchandise is offered under the new unlimited service, the company said.

"We've been investing in our online grocery business by quickly expanding our Grocery Pickup and Delivery services. Delivery Unlimited is the next step in that journey," Tom Ward, senior vice president of Walmart's digital operations in the U.S., said in a statement. "By pairing our size and scale and these services we're making Walmart the easiest place to shop."

Walmart said it has more than 45,000 personal shoppers helping it pack grocery orders for customers every day. It says these people must complete three weeks of training before they can begin that work.

This nationwide rollout builds on a strong grocery business that Walmart has already been amassing in the U.S. It has an online grocery order pickup option, for example, available at nearly 3,000 stores today.

Other retailers offer similar options, with which Walmart is trying to compete.

Target owns delivery platform Shipt, where users can pay $99 per year to have certain items, including groceries, delivered same day. Amazon's Prime membership has an annual fee of $119, in order to have perks like free same-day delivery and discounts at Whole Foods Market. FreshDirect and Instacart are other competitors in the space.

Meanwhile, Walmart is also this fall testing delivering groceries directly inside customers' homes.

Walmart shares are up nearly 25% this year.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/12/walmart-expands-its-unlimited-grocery-delivery-service-nationwide.html

2019-09-12 09:08:35Z
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Oil Demand Growth Weakest In Nearly A Decade | OilPrice.com - OilPrice.com

Global oil demand continues to see downgrades from major energy forecasters, with several downward revisions in just the past week.

The U.S. EIA said in its Short-Term Energy Outlook that it expects oil demand to grow by only 0.9 million barrels per day (mb/d) this year, the latest in a series of downgrades from the agency. In July, it said 2019 demand would grow by 1.1 mb/d and in June it said 1.2 mb/d. The EIA started off the year expecting demand to grow by 1.5 mb/d this year.

The point is not to pick on the EIA – just about every major forecaster has been forced to dramatically slash their numbers – but rather the global economy has slowed down by much more than expected. If the roughly 890,000-bpd demand growth figure comes to pass as the EIA now predicts, it would be the first time since 2011 that oil demand grew by less than 1 mb/d.

OPEC also cut its forecast to about 1 mb/d in its latest report, down 80,000 bpd from last month, citing a slowing global economy. “This highlights the shared responsibility of all producing countries to support oil market stability to avoid unwanted volatility and a potential relapse into market imbalance,” OPEC said in its report. At the same time, the cartel’s production rose by 136,000 bpd in August from a month earlier, led by a significant increase from Saudi Arabia.

The U.S.-China trade war looms as the largest drag on economic growth. China’s car sales fell by about 13 percent in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2018. Car sales have now declined in 14 out of the last 15 months. India’s car sales have also plunged recently, falling by a whopping 41 percent in August from a year earlier.

“We came away from meetings with Energy consumers in China last week with greater confidence that we are likely to see deceleration in China oil demand growth in 2020 vs. 2019. There was little outright bullishness, unlike meetings at last year’s conference,” Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a note after a trip to China. “Companies/investors in our conversations were broadly not optimistic that we would see a resolution of US/China trade tensions in the next 6-12 months.” Related: Oil Markets Face Serious Risk Of New Supply Crunch

The investment bank said that there is downside risk to its demand forecast due to the odds of a further economic slowdown. Goldman expects Brent to average just $60 per barrel in 2020.

“There is simply no strong engine for growth in the market. Large economies are constrained by geopolitical uncertainty (Trade War/Brexit), while emerging/developing economies are dealing with this and relatively high prices,” Richard Gorry, managing director at JBC Asia in Singapore, told Reuters.

Low oil prices are feeding through to lower activity, which could yet lead to slower production growth and higher oil prices. But for now, spending cuts are hitting the shale patch, so much so that the services industry is heading into a recession and outright contraction, according to Rystad Energy.

Goldman Sachs says that OPEC+ cuts are going to be needed through 2020, and only in 2021 will things start to tighten up. By then, the “meaningful falloff of long lead time project addictions” will start to be felt. These are the projects that were scrapped after the 2014-2016 oil bust. Several years on, the dearth of new projects is expected to lead to a drop off of new supply. Also, Goldman says that U.S. shale growth will see deceleration, removing another source of supply growth that has characterized the oil market over the past decade.

Until then, however, the oil market will remain in the doldrums.

There are some signs that the U.S. and China are itching for a deal. China said on Wednesday that it would exempt some products from its planned tariffs, a small olive branch aimed at diffusing tensions. The move comes ahead of a planned meeting between the two sides in October. It’s not clear what might stem from this move, but it’s conceivable that the U.S. may respond with something as well, perhaps a delay of planned tariffs.

Still, a major trade breakthrough remains a far way off. In the meantime, oil prices languish.

By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com

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September 12, 2019 at 06:00AM

The ECB decision is coming — here’s what to expect - MarketWatch

Roots reports nearly $9.7M Q2 loss, falls short of expectations - BNNBloomberg.ca

Roots Corp. shares slipped more than 15 per cent after the chief executive said lacklustre foot traffic and a challenging move to a new distribution centre weighed on its most recent quarterly results that missed expectations.

"Store traffic continues to be a challenge," said CEO Jim Gabel, adding weekday sales are not hitting company targets.

Some of the traffic slowdown came from weather-related issues in certain markets, he said, noting the conversion rate for consumers making purchases things in store rather than just browsing also dropped in some outlets.

Gabel also pointed to challenges moving the company into its new distribution centre, which involved implementing new warehouse management systems and integrating more than 20 information-technology platforms.

The move prompted some delays in the flow of products to stores, despite testing of the new system before it went live.

"Until you go into a live environment, you start pressure testing it with meaningful volumes, that's when you start to see some potential challenges," Gabel said.

Right now, the centre is operating is at 60 per cent of where Roots wants its capacity to be, he said, and the company is doing taking steps that include incurring overtime costs and adding a second shift at the centre.

As the company moves into the fourth quarter, it expects to be around 80 per cent to 85 per cent capacity, he said, reaching close to 100 per cent in the latter part of the quarter. However, he noted, even the beginning of the fourth quarter will be at a level beyond last year's at those rates.

Comparable sales, a key retail metric, fell 2.9 per cent in the company's second quarter due to the decline in store traffic and product delays.

That was partially offset by better than expected e-commerce sales and benefits from store relocations and renovations as overall sales totalled nearly $61.7 million for the quarter, up from nearly $60.2 million in the same quarter last year.

The company's second-quarter loss amounted to 23 cents per share for the 13-week period ended Aug. 3 compared with a loss of nearly $4.1 million or 10 cents per share a year earlier.

On an adjusted basis, Roots lost 15 cents per share compared with an adjusted loss of six cents per share in the same quarter last year.

Analysts on average had expected a loss of 11 cents per share, according to financial markets data firm Refinitiv.

Roots expects sales for its 2019 financial year to be at the low end of, or fall slightly below, its previously disclosed target range of $358 million to $375 million.

The lowered outlook comes partly from macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges in the three Asian markets where Roots operates -- China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, said Gabel. The company is already seeing an impact on the business and expects it will continue throughout the remainder of its 2019 financial year.

The company also said its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization and its adjusted net income will fall short of its previous estimates of $46 million to $50 million and $20 million to $24 million, respectively.

Roots shares fell 43 cents or 15.69 per cent to $2.31 in late afternoon trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange. They hit a low of $2.28 earlier in the day.
 

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U.S. crude supply fell 7.2M barrels last week, API says - Seeking Alpha

Trump reverses course, seeks negative rates from Fed 'boneheads' - The Globe and Mail