On April 21st, The Wall Street Journal reported that Walmart, the largest retailer in the world by sales, had started to wind down operations of the large, automated pickup towers the company had previously installed at over 1,500 outlets across North America. The towers were designed to help drive growth of Walmart’s buy online, pick up in store sales. The phasing out of the towers, however, signals the end of the BOPIS era across Walmart’s North American store network. The reason for this is that consumers had increasingly made it clear they preferred a different click-and-collect service model: curbside pickup. According to a Walmart spokesperson, “The customer told us they want one pick-up spot, and they want that pick-up spot to be outside.”
