Walmart and Amazon’s Favorite New Catchphrase

A few years ago, in the salad days of startups like Gopuff, Getir and Gorillas that promised grocery deliveries in as little as 10 or 20 minutes, investors like SoftBank and Mubadala bet billions of dollars on the idea that shoppers wanted “ultrafast delivery.” Now it’s looking like the actual future of delivery will wind up being “just fast enough.” 

The ultrafast startups have withered or died altogether. Meanwhile, Amazon and Walmart have started embracing their new favorite catchall phrase for fast delivery: “same or next day.” On a call with analysts this morning, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said that in the U.S., “4.4 billion items were delivered same or next day” over the previous 12 months. That seemed to be the first time McMillon used the phrase on an earnings call, judging by recent transcripts of those events. It came after Amazon announced in January that more than 4 billion U.S. deliveries had arrived the same or next day in 2023.