What are Walmart’s ‘dark stores’ and why can’t customers go inside?
Lots of people are used to dashing into Walmart to save money, but now the retail giant is rolling out a store concept that you can’t dash in, but which is designed to save time.
Walmart is testing a kind of store aimed at making its online delivery services more efficient and improving the quality of that service.
They’re calling them “dark stores” because these locations will not be open to the public, but only used to fulfill customers’ online orders.
These stores will add to the 4800 brick-and-mortar stores Walmart already has. The first dark store is already up and running in Dallas, Texas, with another planned for Walmart’s hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas.
The stores are dark for another reason, according to USA Today. They include none of the familiar signage designed to attract shoppers – because they don’t want shoppers going in. Even so, the inside of the dark stores will resemble the stores millions regularly patronize, and will carry some of the retailer’s most popular products, but just for online order fulfillment.
Walmart’s chief executive officer Douglas McMillon said on an earnings call in May that, “Delivery speed continues to help drive our business. We’ll soon reach 95% of the population in the U.S. with delivery options of three hours or less.”
He said that for US Walmart, “the number of deliveries in less than three hours grew by 91% for Q1 versus a year ago.”
Dark stores aren’t Walmart’s only effort to shorten delivery times. The Walmart supermarkets recently expanded drone delivery by 100 additional locations, making the company the first retailer to offer that service in five states.
“We regularly test new tools, features, and capabilities to better connect with and serve our customers — wherever and however they choose to shop,” Walmart told Food & Wine in a statement. “Regardless of the channel, our goal remains the same: to deliver a fast, seamless, and engaging customer experience.”
Greg Cathey, the senior vice president of Walmart U.S. transformation and innovation, said in a release that the company is committed to “pushing the boundaries of convenience to better serve our customers, making shopping faster and easier than ever before.”
Walmart’s dark stores are an obvious effort to compete with retail titans like Amazon, known for delivering orders with impressive speed.
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