Walmart Unveils Robot-Run Warehouse to Whisk Food to Your Car
Automated warehouses next to stores promise to speed up online grocery orders, helping in retailer’s battle with Amazon.
Walmart’s Alphabot promises to speed up the picking of online grocery orders.
Photographer: Walmart Inc.Hidden behind a store in southern New Hampshire, Walmart Inc.’s latest weapon in its food fight against Amazon.com Inc. is now fully operational.
The nation’s biggest grocer on Wednesday unveiled the Alphabot, an automated, 20,000-square-foot warehouse that could make its grocery pickup service faster and more efficient. Alphabot’s robotic carts quickly retrieve items and deliver them to employees at a picking station, who then pack and deliver the order to customers’ cars in the parking lot. Retailers call the process micro-fulfillment, and some analysts say it’s the most promising technology to hit food retail in years.