Walmart celebrated the opening of its first Walmart Pickup Grocery fulfillment center in Bentonville, promising to bring fast, convenient service to customers without the customers leaving their cars.
A team of Walmart and Bentonville community leaders were introduced today to the new store at a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Customers can go online to order groceries up to three weeks in advance or as little as two hours before arriving at the company’s first pickup center, which is located at 3701 SE Dodson Road in Bentonville.
Once a customer arrives at the fulfillment center, he punches his name into a pull-up kiosk and then is directed to pull the vehicle into a numbered slot. Within minutes, a store associate brings the groceries to the customer’s vehicle.
The 15,000-square-foot pickup facility, which will be open seven days a week, will carry about 10,000 unique items, including fresh meat, dairy, produce and common household goods. There’s no additional charge to order the products online or to have pickup store associates deliver the goods directly to customers’ vehicles at the fulfillment center.
Bentonville-based Walmart is recognized for its incredible willingness to try new things as a way to meet more and more customers’ needs. In California and Colorado, a Walmart to Go project is testing a system that allows customers to order products online and have the groceries delivered to their homes. In Denver, free pickups of items ordered online is available at local Walmart stores.
The fulfillment center in Bentonville has 30 workers.