Many of us are familiar with the large retail brick-and-mortar model by now.
If you haven’t overhauled your shopping habits completely and still do at least some of it in person, chances are you’ve stopped by your local Walmart or Target to purchase something.
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But that isn’t to say that these large retailers haven’t had changes of their own over the past several years.
Plenty of these big box stores have changed how they do business.
Some of this is thanks to COVID-19, which forced many retailers to change operations overnight.
In some cases, this meant transitioning operations over to online in order to bridge the gap between enforced lockdowns and reopening.
But for retailers like Walmart (WMT) , the in-store shopping model works well, and it will always be a large part of its business.
A Walmart check-out area.
Walmart undergoes lots of changes
So while Walmart has ramped up its online capabilities (it launched Walmart+ in 2020 as a competitor to Amazon Prime), it’s still well suited for in-store shopping.
One change Walmart has been making is improvements to the quality of its in-store shopping experience.
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It has spent $9 billion to renovate stores, and over the next five years, it intends to overhaul or open up new stores to make shopping easier.
“In the next five years, Walmart is planning to build or convert more than 150 stores, while simultaneously continuing our program to remodel existing stores. These efforts represent millions of dollars in capital investment of labor, supplies and tax revenue, which benefit their respective communities. And they’ll help us reach and serve even more customers,” Walmart CEO John Furner said of the change.
Some of those changes in stores include:
Increased sustainability More selection In-store tech to help shoppers navigateNew aisle displaysFresh paint and lightingMore shopping carts
Walmart makes major checkout change
But Walmart isn’t stopping there.
It announced on Monday, March 17, that it will change its Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) partner at checkout.
Since 2019, Walmart had been working with Affirm, which allowed customers to pay for their purchases in installments — a tempting offer, particularly if someone is making a large purchase, like a new television or furniture.
Walmart represented about 2% of Affirm’s adjusted operating income.
“We will continue our long-term strategy of competing on our products and entering into sustainable partnerships,” an Affirm spokesperson said.
Now, however, Walmart is replacing its BNPL partner with Klarna, a Swedish brand.
The rollout will begin over the next several weeks and is expected to be fully integrated into Walmart’s checkout system by the 2025 holiday season.
Klarna will provide Walmart customers with BNPL assistance for between three and 36 months.
“This is a game changer,” Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said of the decision.
“We look forward to helping redefine checkout at the world’s largest retailer — both online and in stores.”
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