Walmart signed a deal to deliver Dunkin' donuts and coffee. They already deliver Subway sandwiches. The strategy is to compete with DoorDash and Uber Eats by becoming DoorDash and Uber Eats but with worse branding.
This is what happens when a company worth $400 billion looks at the gig economy and thinks: we need in on that. Not the profitable parts. The part where you pay someone $7 to drive a breakfast sandwich four miles in a 2003 Honda Civic that smells like menthol cigarettes and regret.
Dunkin' chose Walmart over the established players. That's like firing your plumber and hiring your landlord to fix the sink. Sure, he owns the building. Does he know where the shutoff valve is? F*ck no.
Retail traders will see this headline and think it's bullish. They'll check the chart. They'll buy calls. They'll tell themselves Walmart is diversifying revenue streams and capturing market share in last-mile logistics. What they won't do is ask why a company that already struggles to staff checkout lanes now wants to manage a fleet of drivers delivering medium iced coffees to people who couldn't be bothered to put on pants.
The largest retailer in the nation looked at its competitive advantages—scale, supply chain, distribution network—and decided the best use of those assets was cold hash browns. Revolutionary.
Somewhere a DoorDash driver just got an alert that his job now has competition from the company that sells Great Value brand everything, and he's supposed to feel threatened. He doesn't. He's too busy delivering someone's fourth meal of the day at 10:30 a.m. while his check engine light blinks in Morse code spelling out "poor life choices."
Walmart will deliver your donuts late, slightly crushed, and with the faint sense that everyone involved in the transaction lost.
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