Best Buy follows Amazon, Walmart in next-day delivery push in time for the holidays
- Best Buy announces that it will offer free next-day delivery on thousands of items, including tablets, headphones and espresso machines.
- This new delivery service excludes larger items such as big-screen TVs and refrigerators.
- This follows similar announcements made by Amazon and Walmart earlier this year.
Best Buy announced Tuesday that it will now offer free next-day delivery on thousands of items — right in time for the holiday season.
The new delivery service covers items such as tablets, headphones and even espresso machines but excludes larger items such as big-screen TVs and refrigerators.
Best Buy said 99% of customers will be able to receive free next-day delivery. Individuals who live in areas where this service is not available will still have free standard shipping on all items.
Shoppers also have the option of picking up their orders within an hour at their local Best Buy store.
This move follows other retailers in making similar announcements this year.
Amazon said in April that it planned to spend $800 million during the second quarter to implement one-day delivery for all Amazon Prime members. In June, Amazon officially began to roll out free one-day shipping on over 10 million products.
Walmart fired back at Amazon in May and announced that it would also start offering next-day delivery for more than 200,000 items on its website.
Unlike Walmart, which requires a minimum purchase of $35 for an order to qualify for free next-day delivery, Best Buy and Amazon do not have a minimum purchase requirement. However, Amazon requires customers to have a Prime membership, which costs $119 annually.
Target expanded its same-day delivery option for 65,000 items on Target.com in June, but this requires a flat fee of $9.99 per order. Target is using Shipt, a membership-based, same-day delivery platform it acquired for $550 million in 2017, to do this.
Prior to this, Target shoppers were able to get orders delivered on the same day by being a Shipt member, which costs $99 per year. Target shoppers still have this option.
Best Buy will also provide same-day delivery in 42 U.S. metro cities for orders completed on BestBuy.com before 3 p.m. local time Monday through Saturday and before 2 p.m. on Sundays, the company included in its Tuesday announcement.
— CNBC's Lauren Thomas and Lauren Feiner contributed to this report.