Walmart is converting vacant retail spaces into compact, neighbourhood-level stockrooms designed to accelerate home delivery across the US.
The retailer has established at least three of these facilities, branded Walmart Depots, over the past year in Dallas, New Jersey and Arkansas, according to public filings reported by the Financial Times.
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Additional sites are under consideration in California, New York, Florida, Nevada, the Pacific Northwest and Virginia, with several earmarked in former Rite Aid and Walgreens locations left vacant by a wave of pharmacy closures.
Each depot covers approximately 20,000ft², holds frequently purchased household goods and is managed by a nearby Supercenter.
The sites are not open to the public; access is restricted to gig workers operating through Walmart’s Spark driver app.
In a submission to officials in Poughkeepsie, New York, where the company is seeking to occupy a former Rite Aid outlet, Walmart described the depots as “a new way to deliver faster to more people”.
The move addresses a structural limitation in Walmart’s existing fulfilment model.
While the company’s approximately 4,600 US stores currently reach 95% of the country within a three-hour delivery window, processing orders inside large Supercenters is slow and creates friction for in-store customers.
Walmart’s US e-commerce operation generates $100bn in annual revenue and is growing at more than 20% a year.
The depot initiative is described as a pilot, with the company seeking short lease terms of five years or less to preserve flexibility.
Earlier this month, Walmart launched new AI features for beauty shoppers to support product discovery and decision-making online and in stores.
The move reflected a broader retail trend towards AI-powered personalisation and digital assistance in the global beauty sector.
In its latest financial result, Walmart posted total revenue of $713.16bn for the financial year ended 31 January 2026, an increase of 4.7% on the previous year.
