Walmart to use robots in its stores to hasten order fulfillment and deliveries

Walmart experienced a surge of orders since the COVID-19 pandemic struck. As many people stay home now and do their shopping online, the retail company’s online grocery has since started getting orders that are more than they can handle.

While Walmart has a big warehouse and many staff, it is still not able to fill orders and deliver them fast. Due to these issues, Reuters reported that the company is looking into robots to resolve the shortcomings.

Robots in Walmart to speed up order deliveries

This means that as online orders get bigger, Walmart is planning to add robots in some of its stores in the U.S. and establish an automated fulfillment service. As stated in the report, the retailing giant will be installing robots to assist with order taking, pick-up, and finally, delivery of orders.

The plan was revealed on Jan. 27, and it was clarified that only small robots are going to be utilized in select Walmart stores. These automated grocery staff will also be in warehouses to fulfill some duties.

Then again, the robots will not be visible to the shoppers because they will be working behind the scenes. Some of their jobs include picking up frozen and refrigerated food items and small general merchandise goods stored in warehouses or fulfillment hubs.

Walmart added that it will be expanding its utilization of state-of-the-art systems for getting orders online and packing them fast for pickup and delivery. At any rate, Walmart is likely to use the Alphabot that the company already tested in 2019. This allowed them to pick orders and get them ready in less than an hour.

Walmart’s automation plan

As per CNBC, Walmart may also get help from some technology providers such as Dematic and Alert Innovation. The company did not mention how many stores are set to get the automated upgrades.

But nevertheless, Walmart will be investing money to fulfill its goal of improving its services and be able to outdo its rivals in the business, including FreshDirect and Amazon. These retailers are trying to beat their competitors by offering lower prices, faster delivery service, and wide-ranging availability of items.