Walmart's Experiment With Pick Up Only Stores Is Over

[Alpha8472]

Pick up only stores have problems. Apparently they are not profitable enough. These stores require tons of labor. It is like having employees shop for customers for free. It is just not profitable enough. The self serve model is more profitable. Let customers shop for themselves and then you get many more impulse buys. The entire thrill of shopping is the treasure hunt. You see many new items and you want to buy more. You can't replicate this online.

Having a personal shopper is expensive, but these Pick up stores are like having a personal shopper for free.

The pandemic ways of total online shopping are over. Customers want to get back to normal and go back for the treasure hunt.

https://www.businessinsider.com/walmart ... ood-2023-2

[BatteryMill]

Some good retail news for once. I only hope Walmart backtracks on carving out store space for pickup fulfillment now.

[pseudo3d]

Some good retail news for once. I only hope Walmart backtracks on carving out store space for pickup fulfillment now.

Or freeing up parking spaces...

[BatteryMill]

Or freeing up parking spaces...

There's so much hype around online order pickup that retailers might just place giant "Pickup"/"Curbside" billboards bigger than the chain's logo.

[ClownLoach]

Or freeing up parking spaces...

There's so much hype around online order pickup that retailers might just place giant "Pickup"/"Curbside" billboards bigger than the chain's logo.

Knowing Wall Street, if Walmart just changed their name to CURBSIDE PICKUP their stock value would probably triple overnight and every analyst would upgrade their stock.

[veteran+]

Or freeing up parking spaces...

There's so much hype around online order pickup that retailers might just place giant "Pickup"/"Curbside" billboards bigger than the chain's logo.

Knowing Wall Street, if Walmart just changed their name to CURBSIDE PICKUP their stock value would probably triple overnight and every analyst would upgrade their stock.

So TRUE!

[Brian Lutz]

Given the fact that only three of these stores ever existed, and only two of them were still open (one of which was in Bentonville near Walmart HQ), it's hard to read too much into this. Given the fact that Walmart acquired a robotics company in October 2022 that they had been working with on their Market Fulfillment Center concept, it's clear that they envision a significant portion of pickup/delivery orders to be handled by automation. That said, I know the Quil Ceda Village Walmart in Marysville WA was being remodeled to carve out space for a MFC, but progress seemed slow, and now that I don't live there anymore I have no idea how progress on that particular store has been.

[storewanderer]

Wal Mart in North Carson City has completed its micro fulfillment center but I am not sure if it is using it yet. Wal Mart in Sparks, NV is still constructing a micro fulfillment center (they are expanding the building to do this).

These projects as far as I know are still a go.

I think the pick up only store concept is a novelty and also that the store only had a Neighborhood Market product line probably did not help.

[arizonaguy]

Wal Mart in North Carson City has completed its micro fulfillment center but I am not sure if it is using it yet. Wal Mart in Sparks, NV is still constructing a micro fulfillment center (they are expanding the building to do this).

These projects as far as I know are still a go.

I think the pick up only store concept is a novelty and also that the store only had a Neighborhood Market product line probably did not help.

I just went to a Walmart in Glendale, AZ that has a micro fulfillment center. They knocked about 8 - 10,000 square feet off of the sales floor and simply have shelving units surrounding the fulfillment center. As a customer, the entire micro fulfillment center is in view (there are simply shoulder height swinging doors separating it from the sales floor). It doesn't appear to be too heavily utilized (there are grocery pickup orders in coolers along the far wall) but a lot of the shelving in the center is empty. The result is the rest of the store has more cramped aisles than a typical Walmart.

[mbz321]

I just went to a Walmart in Glendale, AZ that has a micro fulfillment center. They knocked about 8 - 10,000 square feet off of the sales floor and simply have shelving units surrounding the fulfillment center. As a customer, the entire micro fulfillment center is in view (there are simply shoulder height swinging doors separating it from the sales floor). It doesn't appear to be too heavily utilized (there are grocery pickup orders in coolers along the far wall) but a lot of the shelving in the center is empty. The result is the rest of the store has more cramped aisles than a typical Walmart.

Thanks! I stopped in a recently remodeled Walmart last week and I noticed what you described...it was along the back wall with the pet food area in front of it... I wasn't quite sure what its purpose was.