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Walgreens debuts round-the-clock delivery service

Walgreens is rolling out round-the-clock delivery, enabling shoppers to get items ranging from cough medicine to diapers at any time of the day or night.

Shoppers will be able to buy a range of items including health and wellness products, household essentials, and groceries from nearly 400 Walgreens stores currently open 24 hours a day and have their purchases dropped on their doorstep at any hour, seven days a week.

"We wanted to add 24-hour delivery to make it even more convenient for customers to be able to shop around the clock,'' Stefanie Kruse, group vice president of digital commerce for Walgreens told USA TODAY. We were "thinking about the mom in the middle of the night who has a sick child and ... and needs to get acetaminophen and can quickly, from Walgreens, have that delivered.''

More than 27,000 items will be available for purchase and drop off, though prescriptions, gift cards, alcohol and photo products are excluded. Walgreens says it's the only store chain delivering health and wellness products and is unique among retailers with the large number of items available for 24-hour delivery.

From same day to 24/7 delivery

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The new service is Walgreens' latest move to boost convenience for its shoppers. Last May it began offering delivery within one hour to customers. And starting in December 2020, customers were able to pick up an item at a store within 30 minutes of purchasing it.

The locations chosen for round-the-clock delivery had the highest customer service demand, Kruse said. Shoppers will be able to access the new 24/7 service by tapping the same-day delivery option on Walgreens.com or the Walgreens app. Walgreens employees will select and pack the orders, but they will be dropped off by DoorDash or Uber Eats.

Through Dec. 10, customers can get free delivery of orders costing $20 or more with the code NOW20. After that, the cost of delivery will differ based on location.

Walgreens is launching 24/7 delivery at nearly 400 locations.
Walgreens is launching 24/7 delivery at nearly 400 locations.

The round-the-clock delivery offering has the potential to be very appealing to customers, says Jonah Ellin, chief product officer at 1010data, a retail data analytics firm.

“There are a lot of reasons I would want a Walgreens delivery at 3 in the morning,’’ he said, adding that there’s a particular consumer niche for delivery of over-the-counter health and wellness products, as well as convenience items, during off-hours.

Retailers see a need for speed in delivery

Ramping up delivery speed has become a key way retailers compete for customers, whether enlisting services like Door Dash or Shipt to drop off groceries and other items or turning to drones to make the delivery.

"It certainly has become a new expectation,'' says Ellin of fast delivery. "People want it on demand. They want it now.''

Less certain is how many shoppers are willing to pay for an expedited drop-off of their packages.

"People are starting to differentiate between what they want and what they need fast, and what they’re willing to pay for,'' he says. "There aren't a lot of companies showing it’s profitable to be in that instant delivery game.’’

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Still, companies are trying out different ideas, including the use of drones.

In June, Amazon said it would start deploying drones to deliver customers' purchases through its service Amazon Prime Air.  And Walmart has said it would expand its DroneUp delivery network by the end of this year.

"It should be an increasingly effective and efficient delivery mechanism,'' Ellin says. "Obviously, there's still some progress that needs to be made ... but when working correctly, I think customers will be very interested, not with the novelty of the drone, but that things can reach them rapidly and without considerable extra cost.''

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Walgreens delivery service launches in nearly 400 stores