Walmart is piloting the use of store back rooms to hold third-party marketplace inventory, thereby accelerating delivery times.

The US retailer has set aside storage space in the back areas of selected outlets for goods sold by third-party merchants on its online marketplace, according to the Financial Times.

Under the trial, sellers keep ownership of the stock until it is purchased and pay Walmart commission and delivery-related fees.

The pilot is underway in several stores in Dallas, US.

The test forms part of Walmart’s wider effort to use its store network to support e-commerce fulfilment and improve delivery times.

At present, orders sent from Walmart’s own warehouses usually arrive within one to two days while items shipped directly by marketplace sellers can take longer.

By placing third-party products closer to shoppers, Walmart is assessing whether it can bring those delivery windows down to the same day.

The approach extends Walmart’s existing fulfilment model, in which stores already play a significant role in online order processing.

The company says more than one-third of e-commerce orders dispatched from stores are delivered in less than three hours.

Walmart is using its thousands of stores as local distribution points, with recent supply chain changes helping to make additional back room capacity available.

Greater automation in warehouses has allowed first-party inventory to be sent to stores pre-sorted and ready for the sales floor, creating space for marketplace goods.

The retailer is also using AI to decide which products should be placed in particular locations based on local demand patterns.

Walmart launched its online marketplace in 2009 and has continued to expand it.

The marketplace now lists approximately 500 million items while revenue is increasing by 20% a year, according to chief financial officer John David Rainey, as cited in the report.