Walmart redesigns stores with a digital touch
Walmart has designs on a new omnichannel shopping experience in stores. The retailer unveiled the look of a new layout, look and shopping experience that is more digitally enabled and presents a sleeker design aesthetic.
Janey Whiteside, executive vice president and chief customer officer at Walmart, discussed the new store look in a blog post.
Beyond the spiffier look, the biggest news of the store is it is synced up with the Walmart app so the phone can be used as a navigational device as well as a tool to use and instantly shop in-store.
Whiteside said by the end of this fiscal year, the experience will be in nearly 200 Walmart Supercenters as well as in select Health Centers and Neighborhood Markets, reaching close to 1,000 stores by next fiscal year.
Some highlights of the new store design also include updated Walmart signage on the outside and inside of the store that mirrors the retailer’s Walmart app icon, intuiting a location that will be more about instant omni-shopping.
Department signage in the store will have a bigger, bolder, dimensional typeface, and the layout of the product in those categories aims to be more visible to shoppers.
Lastly, being a digitally enabled store, Walmart’s new-look stores will include self-checkout kiosks and contactless payment solutions like Walmart Pay. There will also be Scan & Go technology to help them checkout directly.
“We’ve tested the new concept in select stores and are excited by the initial feedback from customers and associates,” Whiteside said in the post. “We’ll be rolling it out to more stores this fall and will continue to get customer and associate feedback and evolve the design accordingly.”