Walmart Canada to invest $3.5 bn for growth

The investment will impact every aspect of the business leading to a faster e-commerce experience, two new distribution centres to speed up the flow of products, re-invented and "smarter" stores, an enhanced omni experience and modern digital tools to ensure associates can best serve customers.

"As Walmart Canada's business grows – especially with grocery and e-commerce picking up significant momentum – Walmart will not compromise on offering the everyday low prices customers trust – both online and in-store," the company said.

The $3.5 billion new investments are in addition to over $1 billion invested into remodelling and opening stores over the past five years. The investment will be used for renovating over 150 stores over the next three years – over one-third of the store network. It will also help in accelerating digitisation to create "smarter stores".

Walmart Canada will also accelerate the omni offering for customers and create thousands of new omni associate jobs by expanding the full "Walmart Pickup" offering to approximately 270 stores – or 70 per cent of locations – by end of 2020. It will pilot "hybrid locations" – supercentres with "micro fulfilment centres" in their backroom to increase the speed of fulfilment for pickup and delivery. It will also invest in new technology to accelerate the pickup experience, including advanced notification, and improve fulfilment centre operations to increase speed and trackability.

An amount of $1.1 billion would be invested towards building two new distribution centres in Vaughan, ON and Surrey, BC, and in renovating an existing distribution centre in Cornwall, ON, creating hundreds of construction jobs.

In addition, the company will ramp up capacity in its distribution centre system through new leading-edge technologies.

"Millions of customers choose to shop with us in-store and online every day – and that's a tremendous honour," said Horacio Barbeito, president and CEO, Walmart Canada. "Today's significant investment will position us for future growth and make Walmart Canada even better for our associates and our customers. We are doubling down on our focus on the customer experience – not just to keep up but to lead and to be the very best in Canada."

"We need to do everything we can to delight our customer every single time they choose to shop with us, whether it's online or in the store. We're challenging ourselves to be better and be relentlessly focused on excellent omni customer service and experience," said Sam Wankowski, chief operations officer, Walmart Canada. "This means better stores, quicker service and doing what Walmart does best – focusing on customers, always at Walmart's everyday low prices."

"The retail business is as dynamic as ever and this investment ensures we're developing a supply chain that is the envy of the world. The better the supply chain, the quicker our customers can get the products they want. This investment will transform our supply chain and create hundreds of Canadian construction jobs along the way," said John Bayliss, senior vice president, Logistics and Supply Chain, Walmart Canada.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RKS)