Walmart To Spend $173M On Florida Store Expansions, Innovations

TAMPA BAY, FL -- Walmart expects to spend an estimated $173 million this year in Florida through the opening and remodeling of 34 stores, as well as the launch and continued expansion of several customer-focused innovations.

“Our leadership has a fantastic vision for how we need to evolve and adopt to further position us as a leader in retail innovation, and I’m proud of the work our associates are doing to stay at the forefront of that change,” said Elise Vasquez-Warner, a vice president and regional general manager for Walmart in Florida. “If you consider that almost every innovation being tested in the company right now is happening in our state, you can see why Florida is such an important area geographically for the business. We’re certainly building off strong momentum from last year to serve our Florida customers in new and exciting ways and help our associates work smarter, easier and faster.”

Stores that Walmart plans to remodel include:

• Walmart Supercenter, 5315 Cortez Road W., Bradenton
• Walmart Supercenter, 5800 U.S. Highway 98 N., Lakeland
• Walmart Supercenter, 3801 Tampa Road, Oldsmar
• Walmart Neighborhood Market, 10863 Bloomingdale Ave., Riverview
• Walmart Supercenter, 2701 E. Fletcher Ave., Tampa
• Walmart Supercenter, 4150 Tamiami Trail S., Venice

Walmart Innovations in Florida this year:

Grocery Pickup

• Busy customers love Walmart’s grocery pickup option. It gives them the convenience of shopping online and the ease of quickly picking up groceries without having to leave their cars. The best part: it’s all at no additional cost. Walmart plans to expand the popular program to more than 72 additional stores across the state by the end of the year. The company also recently introduced Walmart Voice Order, which allows customers to simply say “Hey Google, talk to Walmart” and the Google Assistant will add items directly to their Walmart Grocery cart.

Grocery Delivery

• Walmart’s convenient grocery delivery service is also proving to be a hit with customers. This year, Walmart plans to add the service to 63 stores, increasing its coverage area in the state.

Walmart Pickup Towers

• Walmart Pickup Towers are 16-feet tall, high-tech vending machines capable of fulfilling a customer’s online order in less than a minute once they arrive at the store. It’s easy to do-- once the order is ready, step up to the Pickup Tower and scan the barcode sent to your smartphone to retrieve your item. This year, Walmart plans to add 36 Pickup Towers to stores across the state.

Autonomous Shelf Scanner

• These scanners use automation to scan shelves and help identify where in-stock levels are low, prices are wrong, or labels are missing. In addition, the scanners provide a real-time view of inventory in the store-- information used to direct associates to the areas of the store that need the most attention. This year, Walmart plans to expand the technology to 32 additional stores across the state.

FAST Unloader

• Today, product is unloaded as it arrives at the store through a complex, highly manual process that has seen little innovation over the last 50 years – until now. A new system in Walmart backrooms - known as FAST-automatically scans and sorts items that come off trucks based on priority and department, allowing associates to spend less time unloading in the backroom and more time on the sales floor with customers. This year, Walmart plans to expand the technology to 88 stores across the state.

Autonomous Floor Scrubber

• The autonomous floor scrubber uses assisted autonomy technology to perform the task of cleaning and scrubbing the concrete floors in stores. The company plans to expand the technology to 112 stores across the state this year.