Best Buy, Macy's Expand Same-Day Delivery To Speed Holiday Sales

Laura Heller , CONTRIBUTOR

SCHAUMBURG, IL - JULY 20: A sign marks the location of a Best Buy store on July 20, 2017 in Schaumburg, Illinois. Sears Holdings Inc. announced today that it had agreed to sell Kenmore appliances on Amazon.com. The news sent Sears' stock price climbing and triggered heavy selling of stock in other appliance retailers including, Home Depot, Best Buy and Lowes. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Best Buy and Macy's are expanding same-day delivery services in advance of the holiday season as it seems the battle for Christmas will be waged by one-hour delivery drivers. 

Best Buy is tripling the number of metropolitan areas beginning next week with same-day delivery available in 27 metro areas. "We expect customers in nearly 40 cities to be eligible for the service by the holiday season," according to a company statement. 

Deliv, the third-party solution provider, is doubling its footprint with this announcement to 33 major markets (from 19) in 23 states and 1,400 cities, according to a company press release. Best Buy began testing same-day delivery in the Bay Area in late 2015, and expanded to Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle and Washington, D.C., in 2016.

Beginning Sept. 6, same-day delivery will be available in Austin, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Columbus, Denver, Kansas City, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Orlando, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Diego and Tampa.

Ten more metro areas are expected to be added this fall.

Macy's also announced it will expand same-day delivery to 33 markets, an expansion of a program that began in 2014 and one that is long overdue, given the competition, namely Amazon.

In most cases, orders placed by 1 p.m will be eligible in these markets for same-day delivery, for a small fee. All will be delivered by a third party provider, in many (but not all) cases Deliv.

"Same-day delivery is quickly becoming table stakes across every retail segment. With Deliv, retailers can offer their customers that same exceptional level customer experience without the need to invest in their own asset-based delivery fleet," said Daphne Carmeli, CEO and founder of Deliv. "As retailers look to offer a consistent experience nationwide, they need a proven, trusted, national partner. Our expansion offers them the speed, flexibility, and broad national footprint needed to compete with the ever-growing force of Amazon."

Follow me on Twitter @lfheller. Subscribe to the Retail Dive newsletter