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Talk of the bay

Wal-Mart unclogs aisles for late-night shoppers

By MARK ALBRIGHT
Published May 2, 2005

Late-night grocery shopping at Wal-Mart Supercenters often means navigating around fully loaded pallets blocking the aisles and reaching around workers restocking the shelves.

The retailing giant, however, has come up with a new clear-the-aisles solution that is being implemented across the chain.

Needless to say, with the average supercenter generating $80-million in sales every year - three times as much as even the busiest supermarket - the fix is neither simple nor cheap. The chain's supercenters, which are open around the clock, are usually jammed with customers well past midnight, making the traditional after-hours restocking exercise of most grocery stores less appealing to Wal-Mart.

Truck deliveries from Wal-Mart distribution centers - the average supercenter gets eight semitrailers a day - will be scheduled throughout the day rather than just at night. That means more goods are taken directly to the floor throughout the day as the shelves empty. The company developed its own small hand-powered delivery carts that enable clerks to restock the shelves a little bit at a time all day instead all at once starting at 11 p.m. In new and remodeled stores, dairy and luncheon meat coolers are installed that let stockers load them from the back in a separate room.

"We think it's essential to enhancing our shopping experience," said Pat Curran, a regional vice president of the chain, who added the company "does time-in-motion studies on everything."

[Last modified April 29, 2005, 19:28:02]