At Walmart, one of the many tough questions we’re faced with sounds something like this: How do you help millions of people, across multiple markets, save money while shopping locally?
The answer is, in part, pretty straightforward. You invest locally.
For Walmart’s customers across Canada and Mexico, we’re investing in key related areas like infrastructure, logistics and supply chains. These investments, raised independently in their respective markets, are central to our belief in the value of strong local businesses powered by Walmart. Each new investment helps us build trust in the communities we serve and increase access to affordable goods, while creating jobs that push places and their people forward.
Part of giving Walmart customers a great shopping experience is found in the speed of fulfillment. We want our customers across town – and across the country – to get what they need, how and when they need it. That’s why we’re opening new, state-of-the-art distribution centers in Canada and Mexico with a focus on improving the links that comprise our supply chains.
Walmart Canada just announced its plans to open a first-of-its-kind distribution center in Quebec. The space will utilize cutting-edge technology to speed up order fulfillment, keep transportation costs to a minimum and offer our customers quicker services and an even broader product assortment.
This new site comes in addition to two distribution centers that opened earlier this year. The company’s most advanced grocery distribution center opened in British Columbia, and the first distribution center serving the Eastern region opened in New Brunswick. We also opened a new, high-tech sortable fulfillment center in Alberta, and are set to open the country’s first fully automated ambient distribution center in Ontario in early 2024.
And in Mexico, the soon-to-open Villahermosa Perishables Distribution Center is strengthening our logistics and supply chain networks across the entire Southeast region. The new DC improves how we move perishable goods, giving our customers access to a wider range of fresh local products at Walmart’s everyday low prices. Another DC, set to open in Mexicali, provides the same set of advantages – but for dry and ambient products.
Taken together, we expect the new distribution centers to generate around 3,200 new direct and indirect jobs. More than just creating momentum for the business, these new facilities are generating a cycle of opportunity for their communities and our associates.
Across international markets, we’re keeping our commitments to regeneration in mind.
Among the new technology in our facilities are innovations that help remove greenhouse gases from our operations, pushing us toward carbon-zero distribution centers. As Walmart aims to become a regenerative company by 2040, we’ll continue looking for innovations that put both people and nature at the center of our business practices.
Our global reach and constant growth mean innovations like these rarely happen in a vacuum.
In the U.S., the trend toward infrastructure investments continues – as do the high-tech innovations powering growth. In Joliet, Illinois, at one of our next-generation fulfillment centers, people are enabling innovation through technology, working with robotics and machine learning to make fulfillment even faster. Once completed, our next-gen. FCs will have the capacity to provide around 75% of the U.S. population with next- or two-day shipping on millions of items.
We’re proud that around the world, Walmart is investing in the future, making sustainable progress so our customers can find the things they need – whether online or at the store just down the street.
