Walmart Making This Bold Move to Get More Stuff on Store Shelves

Walmart wants to fill up its store shelves more quickly, and it is about to make a huge investment to do so.

How Walmart Hopes To Modernize

Walmart has been in sort of a transitional period as it moves to modernize its stores.

The process started late last year when the retail chain began making over several stores with updated flooring, modernized restrooms, digital touch points and grab-and-go grocery sections.

At the start of 2024, Walmart announced plans to convert more than 150 stores to being "large-format" stores over the next five years. At the same time, the chain also revealed plans to add electric vehicle charging stations. 

Walmart was just getting started at that point. By June, workers began removing paper price tags from store shelves and replacing them with a digital pricing system that will cutdown on time to update prices.

The move also is part of what Walmart hopes will help get customers their items more quickly than those purchased from competitors.

Next up on Walmart's modernization to-do list, the grocery section.

What Walmart Is Doing To Its Grocery Items

Walmart revealed this week that it wants to do a better job of keeping store shelves stocked with perishable grocery items so you won't have to look elsewhere.

Five perishable distribution centers will be built across the country including locations in Texas, Illinois, South Carolina and New Jersey. Walmart will also make efforts to update existing distribution centers to move products more quickly.

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"For example, these high-tech (distribution centers) can store double the number of cases and process more than twice the volume of a traditional perishable DC, more than doubling the number of cases processed per hour," Walmart said in a press release. 

In the past, workers would have to manually stack cases in the centers. With the updates, the process will be automated.

The company hopes to add 2,000 jobs with the new sites.

Walmart remains one of the largest grocery retailers in the U.S. with more than 4,600 stores. Here is a look at the most popular grocery stores according to customers.