DoorDash is ending its partnership with Walmart after four years of delivery service, first reported by Business Insider. The food ordering service sent Walmart a 30-day notice and the termination will go into effect in September.
This news comes in the wake of Walmart’s extended partnership with Canoo to build out a fleet of 4,500 electric delivery vehicles, and just before Canoo released a follow-up to the partnership news stating Walmart has launched advanced Canoo’s Lifestyle Delivery Vehicles for Walmart In-Home deliveries, an optional add-on service that delivers groceries directly into refrigerators and cabinets. The deployment of Canoo’s vehicles are intended to finalize their configuration for Walmart’s advanced deliveries.
“It's been awesome to work with Walmart’s highly experienced team to rapidly deploy our [Lifestyle Delivery Vehicles] LDV’s in real world use cases to finalize a configuration for Walmart,” said Tony Aquila, Canoo CEO, in a statement. “Our LDV has been engineered to enable a wide range of package deliveries, including refrigerated items, groceries and general merchandise and do it efficiently, emission-free and with a high level of driver comfort and ergonomics.”
DoorDash’s decision to end the contract is due to wanting to focus on its “long-term customer relationships” as well as the fact that the company feels the partnership was no longer mutually beneficial, Business Insider states.
A spokesperson from DoorDash told TechCrunch, “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.”
Recent actions like DoorDash’s partnership with Grocery Outlet, offering grocery delivery from over 398 of the grocer’s locations, along with a similar collaboration with Associated Wholesale Grocers, indicate a focus on establishing relationships with a diverse selection of retailers and services.
TechCrunch further found that DoorDash is in the early stages of a potential collaboration with Meta, the parent company of Facebook. This partnership means that DoorDash drivers would facilitate the delivery of Facebook Marketplace items.
Related: Grocery Outlet, DoorDash Partner; Low Fees Beat Speed for Grocery Deliveries