With more options and access to products than ever before, we all have more control over when, how and where we shop.
This makes it an exciting time to work in retail, especially at Walmart. We’re listening to you and creating new ways for you to save both time and money.
One of the best examples of this is Walmart Pickup, the service that enables you to order items online and pick those items up in any Walmart store, completely free.
An easy, convenient option
Pickup is about serving you where you are. Ninety percent of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart store, and we serve more than 140 million customers a week, which gives us a unique opportunity to make every day a little easier for busy families.
Take online grocery pickup, which allows you to order groceries online, select a pickup time and have those groceries delivered to your car in minutes, all without having to leave the driver’s seat. This option is currently available in 600 stores, and we’ll be adding it to another 500 locations this year.
But Pickup goes beyond groceries – it’s also an option for shipping millions of items available on Walmart.com directly to your local store.
And starting on April 19, you will benefit from extra savings on many of the orders you place using Pickup – check out the recent news we shared for details.
We also offer Pickup Today, an incredible convenience for ordering items such as toys, office supplies and electronics, including video games. This same-day service has been so popular that we’ve tripled the number of items available for Pickup Today since last year.
Making Pickup even better
To make the in-store experience as simple and easy as possible, we’ve added additional staffing at our Pickup desks, including department managers in many of our stores – jobs that didn’t exist a few years ago. We’ve also developed new training programs and introduced mobile technology that simplifies how work gets done. This is leading to lower wait times and higher customer satisfaction.
This convenience is maximized by the Walmart app, which allows you to notify the store when you’re on your way, making sure your items are ready when you arrive. Or, if you’re in a store shopping for a specific item like an infant seat and see that your preferred color is available online, you can use the app to have it shipped directly to the store to pick up next time you shop.
Testing new things
As technology changes, so does how we shop. So we’re always exploring new ways to help you save time and money.
One of my personal favorites is our Pickup Tower. Much like a high-tech vending machine for your online orders, this feature in a few of our stores allows you to pick up items in less than a minute by scanning a bar code sent to your smartphone. The pilot phase has been so successful we’re expanding it to other locations across the country.
We’re also testing other pickup options and locations that quickly get items to you in ways that are most convenient.
Some of what we’re doing will make its way to all our stores; others we’ll simply learn from and use to develop the next great thing. The only guarantee is that we’ll let you tell us what works best. The future of shopping is ultimately up to you.
