To keep up with this demand we have to change the way we operate.” At the beginning of the pandemic, in Q1 specifically, we saw at peak 300% growth in pickup and delivery, with four times the number of new customers. “We’ve been growing the business, especially, during these last 12 months. “Demand for the service has been incredible,” Ward said. “The box is built around the systems and allows us to consolidate, sometimes in a matter of minutes.” “It’s how we can truly make ecosystems,” Ward said. Local fulfillment centers won’t only serve the stores they’re found within or are attached to, but also surrounding stores. While the system retrieves orders for assembly, personal shoppers handpick fresh items, such as produce, meat and seafood, and large general merchandise items such as TV screens from the sales floor. The whole process can take just a few minutes from the time the order is placed to the time it’s ready for a customer or delivery driver to collect, Ward said. Once the order is collected, the system stores it until it’s ready for pick up. The items are then brought to a picking workstation, where the order can be assembled with speed. Instead of a sales associate walking through a Walmart store to fulfill an order from the shelves, automated bots retrieve the items from the local fulfillment center. Walmart began testing one system, Alphabot, at a store in Salem, New Hampshire, in 2019, and saw an immediate impact with orders picked and ready in minutes. Ward said local fulfillment centers have opened in Dallas, Texas and Bentonville, Arkansas, where the retailer’s headquarters is located, and where Walmart often tests new concepts so it can keep a close eye on them. “We’ll introduce the technology to as many locations as makes sense. Local fulfillment centers can already be found at dozens of Walmart stores, said Ward, declining to specify the exact number of existing locations nor how many the retailer plans to open.
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