Walmart Canada woos downtown Toronto online customers

A Walmart Canada store in Scarborough, Ontario, can now fulfill as many as 1,200 customer orders per day in downtown Toronto after a refit with Dematic automation technology.

In the repurposed space inside the Scarborough West location, associates can pick online grocery orders six times faster than on a regular sales floor, Mississauga, Ontario-based Walmart Canada said yesterday. Nearly 200 associates support online grocery picking and fulfillment from the store, supporting a service is available to more than 70% of downtown Toronto customers.

Walmart noted that customers benefit from tighter inventory control, resulting in fewer substitutions, and automated processes speed up the overall picking function by 80%. The technology enlists data to systemically manage freshness for stored items, and automated processes enable faster loading, supporting on-time delivery. The system can also reach new customers in underserved areas, the retailer said.

“We’re transforming our business for our customers every day,” Horacio Barbeito, president and CEO of Walmart Canada, said in a statement. “By leveraging our stores, including modernizing our Scarborough West store with innovative new technology, we’re helping more customers access our everyday low prices through online grocery delivery. With investments in technology and infrastructure, our associates have more modern tools to serve our customers.”

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As part of a $3.5 billion investment in infrastructure and customer experience, Walmart Canada said it’s using its footprint and unlocking stores’ capabilities to focus on speed, accuracy and service. Space in stores across the country has been reimagined to better serve customers through online grocery pickup and delivery, Walmart said. That includes the Walmart store in Vaughan, Ontario, where the backroom picking space helps to reduce sales floor congestion and increase pickup and delivery time-slot availability for customers.

“Repurposing our space in Scarborough allows us to lean into online grocery delivery for our downtown Toronto customers in ways we have never done before,” added Laurent Duray, chief e-commerce officer at Walmart Canada. “We’ve embraced technology to help us increase capacity for orders, providing our customers with more available timeslots and expanded access to delivery.”

Overall, Walmart Canada serves more than 1.2 million customers daily via its more than 400 stores, and its Walmart.ca online store is visited by more than 900,000 customers each daily. The company employs over 100,000 associates.

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