In a bid to compete with retail giants like Amazon and Walmart, Kroger Ship, the brand’s home delivery arm, is launching an ecommerce site open to third-party sellers.
The grocer is teaming up with marketplace platform Mirakl to offer a ship-to-home assortment of products beginning this fall. Kroger Ship launched a digital storefront in 2018, but new partnerships being integrated into this marketplace will allow the brand to offer more than 50,000 additional items across natural and organic, international food, specialty items, housewares and toys.
“The expansion of our Kroger Ship platform will continue to bring together our industry-leading customer insights and merchandising data to offer our customers a digital shopping experience that includes staples available in our physical stores as well as products that are exclusive to Kroger.com,” said Stuart Aitken, Kroger’s senior vice president and chief merchant and marketing officer, in a statement.
The launch comes at a time when digital and ecommerce are more relevant than ever, thanks in large part to the coronavirus pandemic, which, even as stores have reopened, has helped popularize digital, contact-free shopping options.
“It’s clearer than ever that digital marketplaces are the foundation of the next generation of commerce,” said Adrien Nussenbaum, CEO and Co-founder of Mirakl, in a statement. “We look forward to supporting Kroger as it takes advantage of this opportunity.”
Kroger is already seeing rapid expansion within its ecommerce space, with a 92% rise in Q1 digital sales after it responded to the pandemic with increased delivery, pickup and ship-to-home options.
Its competitors aren’t slowing down, either. Walmart announced in June it is teaming up with Shopify to expand its third-party marketplace. And Amazon reported a 40% jump in sales during Q2, mainly driven by online grocery sales.
