Wal-Mart test store to let shoppers drive up, get online orders

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to test a new store concept in Bentonville that will allow shoppers to order groceries and other goods online and then pick up their orders at a depot without having to get out of their cars.

The test puts into motion Wal-Mart’s plans to integrate its digital and physical-store formats, which Wal-Mart U.S. President and CEO Bill Simon hinted at during a gathering of Raymond James Financial Inc. institutional investors back in March.

The yet-to-be-named concept store is part of the next generation of customer convenience. Also being tested in Denver and in the San Jose/San Francisco markets in California is Walmart To Go, which lets customers who place orders online pick up the merchandise at supercenters.

“We’re going to try at some point the pickup module without a supercenter, right, just a drive-thru like a - I don’t know, kind of like a Sonic,” Simon said in March.

The new 15,000-squarefoot drive-up store, planned at Walton Boulevard and Dodson Road in Bentonville, will stock fresh and dry-good grocery products, including cereal, chips, bread, vegetables, meat and milk, said Wal-Mart spokesman Deisha Barnett.

When placing an order online, a shopper will schedule a pickup time. Then, he can drive to the store and check in at one of seven kiosks. Each customer will be assigned one of 33 parking spaces out front.Wal-Mart workers will deliver the groceries straight to the customer’s trunk. There will be no need for the customer to go inside the building, Barnett said.

Lenette Sparacino, a mother and blogger for The Sparacino Chronicles from Bentonville, welcomes the idea of saving time and adding convenience to shopping. Wal-Mart considers mothers its core customers because they are often the decision makers for their families.

“I also think for moms who have a sick child, a small baby, multiple children or a very hectic schedule, this would thrill them,” she said.

This drive-up concept was taken straight from the playbook of Wal-Mart’s ASDA Stores Ltd., the successful British supermarket chain. There it’s called Click and Collect.

In the United States, Wal-Mart continues to experiment with smaller-format stores. Express stores are still in the testing phase. As of Feb. 20, Wal-Mart operated 20 of those stores, each stocking about 10,000 items.

Wal-Mart has said it expects to open between 270 and 300 small stores - Express units and Neighborhood Market grocery stores - in fiscal 2015, which began Feb. 1. The accelerated development plan doubles the initial forecast of 120- 150 new stores.

Express and Neighborhood Market stores have continued to generate positive sales and customer traffic each quarter when comparing stores open at least a year. Comparable sales for Neighborhood Market stores grew about 4 percent in fiscal 2014. The Express stores are being expanded beyond the initial three-market pilot phase.

Bentonville City Planner Beau Thompson said Wal-Mart presented its plans for review in an informal but public meeting Tuesday night. The project is expected to go before the Planning Commission next Tuesday. Bentonville is also the test city for a Wal-Mart convenience store that opened earlier this year.

Thompson said the drive up structure will be aesthetically pleasing.

“I believe it is the combination of materials that provides the detail we are looking for in Bentonville,” Thompson said. “Anytime a developer or architect is able to break up a wall with a different material, it goes so much further to enhancing the appearance of the development and the community.

“Through the use of additional landscaping adjacent to the building they are also able to add a variation to height and articulate the skyline,” he said.

Business, Pages 25 on 05/01/2014

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