Walmart and Amazon Expand Same-Day Delivery to Rural U.S. Areas

Walmart and Amazon are racing to speed up order deliveries in rural areas of the U.S. Small cities and towns represent a source of additional sales for the retailer that can build a loyal base of online shoppers there. Roughly 90 percent of U.S. residents live within 10 miles of a Walmart store, and 45 percent of the company’s full-service Supercenters are in places with populations under 20,000, according to a report by investment bank Morgan Stanley.

The bank’s analysts estimated the rural market could be worth up to $1 trillion in annual sales. Competition has intensified as remote workers increase the populations of small towns and communities on the edges of metropolitan areas. The same technology enabling remote office work is also allowing the two largest retailers to deliver merchandise more efficiently to these locations.

Amazon invested $4 billion last year to bring same-day or next-day deliveries to 4,000 smaller cities, towns and rural communities. These included coastal Lewes, Delaware; Milton, Florida; Padre Island, Texas; and Abbeville, Louisiana. In a letter to shareholders last month, the company reported that the average monthly number of customers receiving same-day deliveries doubled in 2025 compared with the prior year.

Amazon is using artificial intelligence-based tools to forecast demand and is opening small micro hubs in rural areas. “While other companies have been backing away from these customers, we’ve been running to them,” the chief executive wrote in the letter.

Walmart is equipping its physical stores with robotic technology that picks and packs online orders from areas stocked with the most popular delivery items for each location. The automated system at a Supercenter in Bentonville, Arkansas, expanded grocery delivery radius to 30 miles from 10 miles.

The company adopted a hexagonal mapping system that replaced traditional service boundaries such as ZIP codes. This change made same-day deliveries available to 12 million more households and allows drivers to retrieve packages from multiple stores in a service area.

A Walmart executive told The Associated Press last fall that residents in these areas want the same services available in large cities such as Manhattan.

The final leg of package delivery has historically been more expensive in rural areas because drivers travel longer distances between stops and sometimes navigate narrow or unpaved roads. Rural counties were once viewed as less financially attractive for retailers.

Over the past decade, rural counties have recorded steady growth in productivity and income. Median household income in rural counties rose 43 percent between 2010 and 2022 to nearly $60,000 a year, according to McKinsey. Rural shoppers spend $1 trillion annually on electronics, clothing, home furnishings and other merchandise, accounting for 20 percent of all U.S. retail purchases except cars and gasoline, according to Morgan Stanley.

FedEx, UPS and the U.S. Postal Service are scaling back or slowing deliveries to some rural areas to reduce costs. Other retailers have also expanded services, with Dollar General extending same-day delivery to more than 17,000 stores and Tractor Supply adding delivery hubs.

Both Amazon and Walmart are expanding drone deliveries. Amazon is establishing small delivery stations based on drive time, customer demand and efficiency. One station in Roanoke, Virginia, delivers tens of thousands of packages daily that previously took longer to reach customers.

A resident in St. George, Utah, said orders that once took four days now arrive in two days after an Amazon station opened there.