Walmart and Amazon speed up rural delivery, raising stakes for Dollar General

Walmart and Amazon are stepping up that fight in rural America, where smaller cities and less-dense communities have long been treated as slower and harder-to-serve markets. Amazon said it will invest more than $4 billion through 2026 to triple its rural delivery network and add about 200 delivery stations serving roughly 4,000 smaller cities, towns and rural communities. Walmart said in April 2025 that its data-driven delivery expansion reached 12 million more households. For Dollar General, that matters because the company has built its business around convenience in the same kinds of trade areas where quick access to detergent, food and household staples can decide where a family shops.

Dollar General said it operated 20,893 Dollar General, DG Market, DGX and pOpshelf stores across the U.S. and Mexico as of Jan. 30, 2026, and that about 75% of the U.S. population lives within five miles of a DG store. The chain has also expanded myDG Delivery to more than 17,000 stores, with customers able to choose one-hour-or-less delivery for an additional $1 ASAP fee. That gives Dollar General a speed story of its own, but it also raises the bar inside stores: customers who know fast delivery is available from larger rivals may be less patient with empty shelves, slow front-end lines or out-of-stocks on high-turn items.

That is a real pressure point for workers already operating in tight labor environments and, in many locations, under the strain of single-associate coverage. When a nearby shopper can compare a store trip against delivery from Walmart or Amazon, every missed item becomes a service problem, not just a lost sale. The scramble can also spill into district-level decisions on labor scheduling, inventory discipline and which products deserve the most space on the sales floor.