A dark gray robot rolled down the store aisle, beeping and flashing a yellow light as it scrubbed the concrete floor between a pallet of two-liter soda bottles and racks of colorful swimwear.

A few aisles over, a tall white robot outfitted with LED lights and cameras scanned the shelves, taking virtual stock of green bean cans and ramen cup inventory. At the back of the store, another robot automatically scanned and sorted cardboard boxes of products as they were unloaded from a delivery truck.

Welcome to Walmart and its vision for the future of brick-and-mortar stores. The world’s largest retailer earlier this month announced plans to invest $265 million across Texas to upgrade stores, deploying hundreds of robots to scrub floors, scan shelves, fetch online orders and unload delivery trucks. The Bentonville, Ark.-based company plans to spend $1 billion this year to bring thousands of autonomous robots to many of its 4,600 stores nationwide.

It’s a plan that has heightened concern that automation could compound job losses in an industry already battered by high-profile bankruptcies and thousands of store closures.

By the Numbers Walmart plans to install thousands of robots across many of its 4,600 stores nationwide this year. Nationally 1,500 automated floor scrubbers, 1,200 automated delivery truck unloaders 900 automated pickup towers 300 automated shelf scanners Texas 171 stores will receive automated floor scrubbers 137 stores will receive automated delivery truck unloaders 82 automated pickup towers will be installed 25 stores will receive automated shelf scanners

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The retail industry has lost more than 140,000 jobs since January 2017, despite soaring employment in most other sectors of the U.S. economy, according to Labor Department data. U.S. retailers have announced nearly 6,000 store closures so far this year, surpassing last year’s 5,726 closures, according to the latest Coresight Research store tracker report.

Walmart, the world’s largest private employer with more than 1.5 million workers nationally, operates 81 Supercenters and Neighborhood Markets in the Houston area. The company last month reported consolidated net income of $7.1 billion on revenue of $514.4 billion for the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, compared to a $10.5 billion profit on revenue of $500.3 billion a year earlier.

“Obviously, automation is a concern for retail,” said Parker Harvey, a Houston regional economist with Workforce Solutions, a quasi-government group that provides employment services in the 13-county region. “Given the size of Walmart, it could have a large impact.”

Early adopters

Amazon has long been on the bleeding edge of technology, envisioning a future of cashierless stores, automated warehouses and flying drones that deliver online orders to shoppers anytime and anywhere. The Seattle-based e-commerce giant’s ascendance has driven competitors, including Walmart, to invest heavily in e-commerce and automation to make shopping more convenient for consumers.

Kroger, the nation’s largest grocer, earlier this month launched its autonomous grocery delivery service in Houston. And the Cincinnati-based company last year launched its “Scan, Bag and Go” technology in the Houston area, allowing customers to use a wireless handheld scanner or a smartphone to scan and bag groceries as they shop in the store. It also struck a deal with U.K.-based technology company Ocado to use automated robots to pick, sort and pack online grocery orders in distribution centers.

H-E-B, the Texas grocery heavyweight, last year acquired Favor, an Austin food delivery company. The San Antonio chain, which is building a technology and innovation hub in Austin, offers online ordering for home delivery at 48 stores in the Houston area and is piloting a self-checkout mobile app at several Texas stores.

Stop & Shop, a Massachusetts-based grocer, earlier this year rolled out robots in some of its stores to alert managers of spills. Chinese e-commerce giants, such as Alibaba and Tencent, are pioneering the use of mobile payments.

“Brick-and-mortar retail is under pressure, and existing concepts are trying to figure out ways to become more efficient,” said Harvey, the Workforce Solutions economist. “Walmart has perfected the supply chain, but the store side is something they’re realizing could be more efficient to compete with the Amazons of the world.”

Walmart in recent years has installed “PickUp Tower” vending machines to handle online orders, utilized Virtual Reality goggles to train new hires and deployed “Check Out With Me” cashiers with mobile scanners to help customers pay for items anywhere in their stores.

The discount retailer revamped its website and mobile app to make finding items easier online and in stores. It also rolled out two-day shipping and acquired e-commerce brands such as Bonobos and Jet.com.

“We want Walmart to be synonymous with technology and e-commerce,” Walmart Store Manager Sherry Eberle said on a recent tour of the Walmart Supercenter in Richmond, one of the first in the Houston area to use autonomous robots. “It’s a whole different Walmart and a whole new world of retail.”

Boosting efficiency

As part of its embrace of technology, Walmart last week announced it transformed a Neighborhood Market in a New York suburb into an “Intelligent Retail Lab,” a grocery store outfitted with artificial intelligence-enabled cameras, sensors and computers that can notify employees when an item is running low on shelves and needs to be restocked.

Walmart argues automation will help minimize tedious and time-consuming tasks, freeing up employees to focus on more fulfilling duties such as customer service.

At the Richmond store, what used to take 15 workers to unload and sort new inventory, now takes just five employees with the help of an automated unloader. Similarly, scanning items and restocking shelves used to take eight employees most of the day. Now it takes one employee two hours to complete.

“It’s made our employees more efficient,” Eberle said.

Concerns persist, however, that automation will curtail or eliminate more industry jobs.

“Make no mistake, Walmart’s move to autonomous floor cleaners is not about better serving customers and workers,” the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents 1.3 million retail workers, said in a statement. “This latest job-killing venture has the potential to destroy over 5,000 maintenance jobs in the U.S. if it is implemented in every Walmart store.”

Walmart, whose workforce is not unionized, has acknowledged some jobs may be cut in the future as automation eliminates some mundane tasks, but that the reductions will take place only through regular attrition. The company disputed the notion that robots will replace human employees.

Walmart is still hiring cashiers, cart pushers and stockers across its Houston Supercenters, which on average employ about 300 workers. The Walmart Supercenter in Richmond employs 260 workers, and offers a starting salary of $11 an hour, Eberle said.

Moreover, innovations such as online grocery pickup and delivery services have led to Walmart hiring 35,000 personal shoppers nationwide — jobs that did not exist a few years ago.

Eberle, who started at Walmart 23 years ago as an overnight apparel associate and worked her way up to becoming a store manager, said she never imagined she would one day oversee robotic employees.

While acknowledging that concerns about robots taking over human jobs are valid, Ebele said the fears are exaggerated.

“Robots are only as good as the humans that operate them,” Eberle said. “We still need that human input. Our people are what makes the difference.”

Role model

Walmart’s foray into robotics and automation has piqued the interest of retailers from around the world. The Walmart Supercenter in Richmond, which has used robots since it opened in August, has hosted retail executives from Australia, Japan and Mexico. Most recently, a group of 40 store managers and executives from Coop, a Swedish grocer with 600 stores in Europe, toured the store.

Eberle led the tour, showing off the autonomous floor cleaner and shelf scanner that use QR codes and geolocation technology to pinpoint their location in the 191,000-square-foot store. Sensors detect shoppers and stop the robots before they bump into people. So far, the robots have not had any accidents, Eberle said.

As the tour progressed, Eberle showcased VR headsets that teach new hires how to restock shelves and how to react to an active shooter situation. She later demonstrated overhead camera technology that can help prevent shoplifting from self-checkout lanes.

Stewart Samuel, the program director for retail research firm IGD Services Canada, organized the Walmart tour for the group of Swedish retailers. After touring many supermarket chains worldwide, Samuel said Walmart is leading the pack when it comes to in-store technology.

“Walmart is probably the most advanced retailer we’ve seen,” Samuel said. “Houston is so competitive. Our clients are interested in what it takes to compete here.”

Patrik Levin, the chief sales and marketing officer with Coop, said he too was impressed with Walmart’s robots.

“It’s very interesting,” Levin said. “It feels like they’re taking very big strides in technology.”

Stacy Dickerson, 51, encountered Walmart’s robots for the first time on Tuesday while shopping for coffee and cake mix with her 16-year-old daughter, Kaleigh.

As the automated shelf scanner whirled by her cart, the Richmond resident uttered, “What in the world is that?” before flagging a human stocker to ask what the robot does.

“I hope it doesn’t replace human beings,” Dickerson said later. “I get upset when I’m on the phone and I can’t talk to a person. But that’s the way the world is going, I guess.”

paul.takahashi@chron.com

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