Walmart Stores’ expanding network of large distribution centres will allow it to deliver packages throughout the United States in two days, setting it up to compete more efficiently in online holiday sales, a senior executive said on Thursday. Competition with online rivals including Amazon.com, which recently surpassed it in market value, has heated up and Walmart has committed as much as $1.5 billion this year to invest in e-commerce. Much of that is going into large-scale warehouses dedicated to fulfilling online orders. It now has five such facilities, from which it says it will be able deliver to 95 per cent of country in two days. The facilities — some big enough to house two cruise liners — will enable it to receive, sort and ship packages faster and at a lower cost, Michael Bender, chief operating officer of global e-commerce, said in an interview. Bender was speaking after an event to mark the opening of one of the new warehouses — a 1.2 million square foot facility outside Atlanta which cost about $100 million to build and will act as a hub for surrounding states. ‘Christmas for us will be very different than Christmases of the past where we have had to work out of facilities that are not like this,’ Bender said, noting, among other changes, that it may no longer need to rent warehouse space to keep up with the influx of goods during the holiday as it previously did.
