Walmart will now offer same-day refrigerated prescription deliveries
In an industry first, customers can now get insulin, Ozempic, and other GLP-1s as part of their usual grocery delivery.
Walmart is now bringing Ozempic straight to your doorstep... along with your daily food shopping.
The retail giant said Monday that its same-day pharmacy delivery now includes refrigerated and reconstituted medications such as insulin, GLP-1s, and pediatric amoxicillin, making it the first retailer in the US to offer the service alongside groceries in a single online order.
The move comes less than a year after Walmart launched same-day pharmacy delivery last October, having fulfilled over 4 million orders since then, some in as little as nine minutes. Until now, though, the service excluded controlled substances like opioids and medications requiring refrigeration, which make up over 30% of Walmart’s pharmacy revenue.
With the expansion, the company says it can now deliver more than 90% of its prescription medications directly to customers — an edge that could even put it ahead of the pharma giants that outweigh its market share at the moment.
According to the Drug Channels Institute, Walmart is the fifth-largest US pharmacy by prescription revenue, capturing nearly 5% of the market. Though it trails retail peers like CVS and Walgreens, neither offers refrigerated prescription delivery, while specialty players like Cigna and UnitedHealth don’t offer a same-day delivery equivalent.
Meanwhile, Amazon, which also rolled out same-day prescription delivery last year — including separately packaged refrigerated drugs — remains one of Walmart’s fiercest competitors in the space. Still, its pharmacy sales were $1.25 billion in 2023 and projected to be around $1.8 billion in 2024, per Business Insider. That’s far below Walmart’s estimated $32.7 billion in prescription revenues last year, a figure that was lifted by the recent weight-loss drug boom.
Walmart’s prescription revenue has been rising steadily for over a decade, averaging just 2.9% growth per year since 2010. That changed in 2023, when growth suddenly broke into the double digits. In February, CFO John David Rainey told investors that Walmart’s Health & Wellness segment — including pharmacy and over-the-counter drugs — grew by the mid-teens, “due largely to GLP-1 sales.”
However, the surge remains a double-edged sword for Walmart: while the pricey GLP-1 injections have been a boon for pharmacy sales, they also come with thin margins and cut into other grocery items like diet snacks, supplements, and fitness gear, as consumers look away from previously favored weight-loss methods.
