Walmart just told investors something that should make every retailer pay attention: their supply chain automation spending will “peak this year and next year.” That’s not a warning. It’s a declaration.

The numbers tell the story. Twenty-three of Walmart’s 42 regional distribution centers are being retrofitted with automation. Sixty percent of U.S. stores now receive freight from automated facilities. Half of their e-commerce fulfillment volume runs through automated systems. And “a couple thousand facilities” are slated for some form of automation in 2026 alone.

But the real shift isn’t happening in massive fulfillment centers. It’s happening in store backrooms.

Stores Are the New Warehouses

Walmart operates roughly 4,700 U.S. stores. That’s 4,700 potential micro-fulfillment nodes sitting within 10 miles of 90% of the American population. Amazon, for all its logistics muscle, can’t match that footprint.

The company is leaning into this advantage. In Q4, Walmart delivered 35% of store-fulfilled orders in under three hours. Not three days. Three hours. That’s same-day delivery without the same-day infrastructure costs that sink so many retailers.

CFO John David Rainey put it plainly: “Inventory and labor are our two largest costs. Technology-enabled productivity benefits are critical to our ability to grow our core omni-business at lower marginal cost.”

Translation: stores that once existed to sell products now exist to ship them too. And the software running those operations needs to handle both.

The WMS Problem Nobody Talks About

Here’s what most coverage of Walmart’s automation push misses: the warehouse management system underneath it all.

Traditional WMS platforms were built for distribution centers. They optimize pick paths, manage inventory slots, and coordinate outbound shipments to stores. They weren’t designed to handle a store associate grabbing items for a delivery order while customers browse the same aisles.

Micro-fulfillment changes the rules. You need systems that can:

• Prioritize online orders against in-store replenishment in real time
• Route pickers efficiently through a retail floor layout (not warehouse racking)
• Manage inventory accuracy when the same SKU serves walk-in customers and delivery orders
• Handle returns that might arrive via mail, store drop-off, or curbside

Most legacy WMS platforms buckle under this complexity. They were never designed for it.

What Walmart’s $330 Million Tells Us

In Opelousas, Louisiana, Walmart spent over $330 million modernizing a regional distribution center. The old conveyor systems, some running for 20-30 years, got replaced with robotics and automation.

The interesting part: they retained the existing workforce and shifted them into higher-skilled positions focused on robotics maintenance and oversight.

This is the pattern we’re seeing across retail. Automation doesn’t eliminate jobs as much as it changes them. But it also raises the stakes for the technology stack. When you’ve invested nine figures in a facility, the software orchestrating those robots better work flawlessly.

The Omnichannel Pressure Cooker

Amazon recently revealed plans to automate 75% of its operations and potentially replace over half a million jobs. That’s the competitive pressure Walmart is responding to.

But Walmart has something Amazon doesn’t: stores everywhere. The question is whether they can run those stores as fulfillment centers without destroying the in-store shopping experience.

Early signs say yes. Over one million Walmart associates now carry handheld devices with computer vision capabilities, mapping inventory in real time. They know what’s in stock, where it sits, and whether it’s available for fulfillment or reserved for the sales floor.

That level of visibility requires systems that talk to each other. Inventory management. Order management. Workforce management. Transportation management. And at the center of it all, a WMS flexible enough to treat a store like a warehouse when needed.

What Other Retailers Should Take Away

Walmart’s micro-fulfillment push isn’t just a Walmart story. It’s a preview of where retail is heading.

If you’re a retailer watching from the sidelines, consider these questions:

• Can your current WMS handle store-based fulfillment alongside traditional DC operations?
• Do you have real-time inventory visibility across all locations, not just warehouses?
• Can your systems prioritize between channels when the same inventory serves multiple purposes?
• Are you treating stores as fixed-cost real estate, or as flexible fulfillment assets?

The retailers who answer these questions now will be positioned when customer expectations shift. The ones who wait will find themselves playing catch-up against competitors who already turned their stores into fulfillment engines.

Walmart is betting billions that proximity beats speed. That having inventory 10 miles away matters more than having a faster robot 100 miles away. For more great information you can find a link to their automation strategy in the warehouse as well. For retailers with physical footprints, that’s a bet worth understanding.

Veridian helps retailers and distributors modernize their supply chain operations with technology that actually fits how they do business. If your current systems can’t keep up with omnichannel demands, let’s talk.