Tractor Supply-Roadie Ramp Up Same-Day Delivery Amid Coronavirus

As physical isolation is the sole key to curb the spread of COVID-19, expediting delivery services has become the need of the hour. Impressively, companies are looking for numerous ways to speed up their delivery capabilities. Renowned rural lifestyle retail chain, Tractor Supply Company TSCO, is following suit. The company has expanded its tie-up with Roadie, which helped it launch same-day delivery across all its 1,863 U.S. stores. Notably, this makes Tractor Supply the nation’s first general merchandise retailer offering same-day delivery across all its outlets.

With more than 150,000 verified drivers, Roadie offers same-day delivery to almost 89% of U.S. households. Notably, Tractor Supply partnered with Roadie three years back. Through this tie-up, the company will also be able to support customers residing in small cities and towns. Notably, it will now provide same-day and next-day delivery for approximately 15,000 items, consisting of livestock feed, dog food, riding lawn mowers and more.

Rising concerns over the pandemic led Tractor Supply to roll out same-day delivery via Roadie across all its stores. Impressively, both parties have sped up same-day deliveries in around 80% of Tractor Supply’s stores in less than three weeks.

A week ago, Tractor Supply came out with preliminary financial results for first-quarter 2020. Notably, the company’s first-quarter sales rose 7.5% to $1.96 billion as compared to $1.82 billion reported in the year-ago quarter. Also, comparable store sales improved 4.3%. Sturdy demand in March, when customers were increasingly hoarding core everyday items as well as usable and edible merchandise due to the ongoing pandemic, led to the upside.

Particularly in March, the company witnessed a comparable store sales improvement of 12% year over year, thanks to robust growth in key consumable categories to the tune of more than 20%. Moreover, the e-commerce business performed well in March. Encouragingly, management envisions adjusted earnings for the first quarter to be 69-71 cents. The Zacks Consensus Estimate is pegged at 70 cents.

Despite such impressive top-line results in the first quarter and the second-quarter comparable sales starting on a solid note, management withdrew its 2020 guidance on account of the uncertain COVID-19 impacts.

Nevertheless, this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company’s shares have gained 2.1% against the industry’s 28.5% decline over the past three months. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Other Companies Catering to Coronavirus-Led Demand

As Americans are stockpiling essential goods due to the coronavirus-led panic, general merchandise retailers are now filling up the shelves fast and prioritizing their actions to cater well to the burgeoning demand. Also, they are emphasizing on delivery services as social distancing and staying indoor measures are the need of the hour. Encouragingly, e-commerce king Amazon AMZN had already employed 100,000 employees in the United States to boost its delivery capabilities. It recently announced plans to hire 75,000 more workers.

Other big-box retailers like Target TGT and Walmart WMT also have prominent delivery services and have been undertaking actions to deal with the coronavirus-led demand spike. Target has prioritized its actions to resonate well with the prevailing crisis and chosen to cater to Americans’ burgeoning demand for essential commodities now. It has also increased the minimum wage by $2 an hour until at least May 2 and decided to pay bonuses to frontline team executives. Walmart had earlier unveiled its plan to hire 150,000 additional workers across its stores, clubs and distribution centers to cater to coronavirus-led demand spike.

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