Walmart Plans Pick-Up Grocery Store

To allow customers to pick up grocery orders, Walmart is proposing a drive-up grocery store in a Chicago suburb. The potential store in the village of Lincolnwood housed a Dominick’s grocery store in the past, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Walmart spokesperson Ann Hatfield said the proposed store is “yet another location close to where they live or close to where they work where they can go online, order their groceries and pick it up at this location. They don’t have to get out of their car.”

With the proposed store, customers would order groceries from the retailer’s mobile app or website and then pick up their items from an assigned bay at the store, where staff would put the items into the customers’ cars. Company officials are seeking to have covered parking spaces in case of inclement weather.

The news comes as Walmart announced it is now offering grocery delivery in 50 metro areas across the United States. In a blog post, the retailer wrote, “when it comes to grocery delivery, we’ve got our foot on the gas. Combined with third-party, crowd-sourced delivery providers, we are well on our way to bringing grocery delivery to 100 metro areas, covering 40 percent of U.S. households. We officially launched our 50th grocery delivery metro area earlier this month in Akron, Ohio — and we have more locations on the way.”

In addition, on Sept. 20, the retail giant began receiving orders at its 2,000th grocery pickup location in Fayetteville, Arkansas. At the end of this fiscal year, it expects to have 2,140 access points in 430 markets, covering 69 percent of all households in the U.S.

To fulfill all of those orders in a timely manner, Walmart announced last month that it will be testing robots to help it complete online grocery orders quicker. The retailer is also collaborating with startup Alert Innovation to launch a pilot using the automated robot, called Alphabot.