Focused on next day delivery, Walmart to open state-of-the-art e-commerce facility in PA
Besides the Shippensburg, Pa., facility (see rendering above) Walmart has recently announced e-commerce fulfillment centers for Olive Branch, Miss.; Salt Lake City; and Lebanon, Tenn.
Walmart’s latest new piece of e-commerce infrastructure will be a facility in Pennsylvania.
The discount giant is opening a new 1.8 million-plus-sq.-ft. fulfillment center in Shippensburg, Penn. Slated to open in spring 2022, the facility is expected to create up to 600 permanent, full-time jobs in the southern Pennsylvania region.
Unlike distribution centers, which are focused on receiving, storing, and distributing product to Walmart stores, the company’s fulfillment centers are focused on storing millions of items that are picked, packed and shipped directly to customers as soon as the next day.
The facility is part of a broader initiative to add more capacity into Walmart’s supply chain as the retailer prepares for growth. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022, Walmart U.S. e-commerce cited 70% growth during a two-year period. According to Walmart, six times the number of customers placed delivery orders in the fourth quarter of 2021 as did pre-pandemic.
The Shippensburg site, expected to create up to 600 jobs, will be used to store millions of items ordered via Walmart.com to be picked, packed and shipped directly to customers as soon as the next day. Walmart noted that its e-commerce fulfillment centers differ from distribution centers, which focus on receiving, storing and distributing product to Walmart stores.
Overall in Pennsylvania, Walmart operates seven distribution centers and 160 retail stores and has more than 60,000 employees.
“We are proud to open a new state-of-the-art fulfillment center in Shippensburg, which will be instrumental in providing our customers with increased access and faster shipping on millions of every-day low priced items,” Steve Miller, senior vice president of supply chain operations at Walmart U.S., said in a statement. “In addition to faster shipping, our investment in Shippensburg will bring a positive impact to the community by bringing even more employment opportunities to a growing local economy.”
The project marks the fourth e-commerce fulfillment center announced recently by Walmart, including three in just over a month. In January, the company unveiled plans to build a 1 million-square-foot e-commerce facility in Olive Branch, Miss. That followed December announcements of a 1 million-square-foot fulfillment center for Salt Lake City and a 925,000-square-foot automated fulfillment center in Lebanon, Tenn. The Olive Branch center is due to launch this spring, with the Salt Lake City facility slated to go into operation in this summer and the Lebanon facility opening in the fall.
Walmart has said fulfillment centers have become a pillar of its plan to boost supply chain capacity to help power omnichannel growth. Through the fiscal 2022 fourth quarter ended Jan. 31, Walmart U.S. e-commerce comparable sales climbed 70% on a two-year stack. For all of fiscal 2022, e-commerce sales gained 11% and were up 90% over two years.
