CINCINNATI, Ohio — The largest grocery store chain in the United States announced plans Tuesday to launch an online marketplace, known as Kroger Ship, to rival e-commerce behemoths Amazon and Walmart.
Cincinnati, Ohio-based Kroger has partnered with French e-commerce firm Mirakl to boost its Kroger Ship inventory by 50,000 third-party products, WLWT reported.
Kroger Ship debuted in 2018 as the grocer’s digital-delivery service, but will now offer the additional products from third-party retailers across categories such as international food, specialty items, toys, housewares and natural and organic products, Fox Business reported.
“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,” Stuart Aitken, Kroger’s senior vice president and chief merchant and marketing officer, said in a statement.
“As part of our continuing transformation, we look forward to accelerating the development of our e-commerce platform and providing our customers with even more choices,” Aitken added.
Jody Kalmbach, Kroger’s group vice president of product experience, stated that the shift is in line with customer demand.
“Our customers are increasingly turning to our e-commerce solutions provided at Kroger.com for their grocery and household essential needs. To better serve our customers, we’re continuing to invest in technology that enables us to expand our digital services to deliver anything, anytime, anywhere,” Kalmbach stated.
According to Fox Business, Kroger completed the build-out of a 350,000-square-foot distribution center in Frederick, Maryland, last month to support its grocery delivery expansion. And because the company does not have brick-and-mortar stores in the Baltimore, Philadelphia or Washington, D.C. markets, the company also partnered with Ocado Solutions to help ensure online order fulfillment in those cities.