Walmart has inaugurated a store-based fulfillment center in Bentonville, Arkansas, marking its second market fulfillment center in the country. The facility aims to increase the store’s daily order fulfillment capacity and free up store employees to focus on other tasks. The first market fulfillment center was established as a proof-of-concept in Salem, New Hampshire, utilizing Walmart’s proprietary storage and retrieval system called Alphabot, developed by robotics automation company Alert Innovation, which was later acquired by Walmart.
With the implementation of market fulfillment centers, Walmart moves closer to its plan of incorporating them into numerous stores beyond Salem. The company aims to leverage Alert Innovation’s technology and capabilities to deploy these centers more efficiently and rapidly.
Ryan Simpson, store manager at the Bentonville location, expressed enthusiasm about the new order fulfillment system, highlighting its ability to enhance the customer experience, improve online order accuracy, and provide a platform for future business growth.
In the market fulfillment process, automated bots retrieve items from within the center, significantly streamlining the order fulfillment process. Once the items are collected, they are stored until they are ready for pickup by customers or delivery drivers. This process takes only a few minutes from the time the order is placed to its preparation for collection.
The timing of Walmart’s efforts to expedite online order fulfillment processes aligns with the significant growth in store-fulfilled delivery sales, which have nearly tripled to over $1 billion per month.
