• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, April 6, 2023

Walmart welcomed retail experts to its annual investor event, as it unpacked plenty of dazzling revelations about its automation efforts.

By the end of its fiscal 2026, the company promises that automation will serve about 65% of stores and that 55% of the order fulfillment will move through automated facilities. That could improve average unit costs by as much as 20%.

It forecasts a 4% sales growth rate for the next three to five years, adding more than $130 billion to its current sales base of roughly $600 billion.

Walmart touted the effort as a "people first" initiative, and says it would create jobs that require less physical labor but higher wages.

CNN reports that Walmart is laying off 2000 warehouse workers.

Oppenheimer analyst Rupesh Parikh, who attended the event, writes that the presentation left him "incrementally upbeat on the company's longer-term prospects."

He is encouraged that the company can reaffirm its commitment to that 4% growth rate, even with many of its core customers under financial pressure. "Additionally, the company now appears to be on a clearer path towards e-commerce profitability," he says.

The event was largely focused on Walmart's new approach to supply chains, with more automation. "The outcome improves in-stock, inventory accuracy and flow whether customers shop in stores, pickup, or have a delivery," the company says in its announcement.

Separately, the company also announced the reopening of the Chesapeake, Virginia store that was the scene of its latest mass-shooting tragedy.

Walmart has spent the last five months redesigning the store, which includes an outdoor memorial space that honors the six Walmart associates who were murdered there last year.

Some activists have criticized Walmart for not doing more to protect workers and the public.

In an editorial in USA Today responding to the re-opening, Cynthia Murray, a Walmart associate of 22 years, reminds people how many shootings have happened at Walmart stores over the years.

"For retail workers like me, these shootings are a reminder of how dangerous our jobs have become and, increasingly, how little our employers value the lives of the people in their stores – both the customers who shop there and the associates who work there," she writes.

Citing data from Guns Down America, she says since January 1, 2020, there have been 363 gun incidents and 112 gun deaths at Walmart. And that doesn't include the 23 lives lost at a mass shooting in an El Paso, Texas, Walmart in 2019.

Murray adds that the company has done little to update safety policies or add security. “Company spokespeople are quick to offer thoughts and prayers,” she says. “And then it’s on to the next incident.”