New stock at Walmart: Details you need to know

The Walmart hypermarket chain offers customers a wide range of products. However, some items temporarily disappear from sale, while others are absolute novelties, the appearance of which customers are very much waiting for. Most often, the groups of regularly updated and expected products include:

• food,
• technical devices,
• clothing and footwear,
• products for children.

Therefore, to receive timely up-to-date information about new arrivals, the buyer can use knowledge about such events.

The control of new arrivals’ process

New merchandise arrives at Walmart stores daily. This usually happens during working hours, when there are fewer visitors, so it helps not to disturb customers. This typically happens at night or after 16:00. To plan the purchases easier and save the time, you can find out about the availability of goods in a particular store via the application for smartphone.

When does Walmart restock? (Schedule)

For some customers, it is important to buy only fresh green/ fish /meat, so they try to make shopping by the time of the restocking. Since hypermarkets have numerous customers, updates are organized regularly: every day, and sometimes several times a day. It also depends on the number of customers in each trading place and the buyers’ activity (for example, there is an increased demand for goods on celebrations).

The most common restock schedule is carried out at night (11 pm -7 am).

Why make a daily products’ update?

There is nothing strange about such a practice. It mainly concerns food, and the fresher the product, the healthier it is. It’s indispensable to observe the shelf life of the goods, otherwise there is a substantial risk of developing pathogenic bacteria. So, daily restoration allows you to take care of the quality of products and the customers’ well-being.

Stores also try to comply with the legislation that obliges supermarkets to respect the careful food storage, especially products of animal origin and plants. There are certain storage periods, as well as requirements regarding the placement of goods on the shelves and in the warehouse, maintaining the temperature conditions. Otherwise, managers may have problems with regulatory authorities.

Technical equipment

Since electronics is not included in the list of subsistence supplies, regular updates depend only on a shortage of certain categories of goods (when most have been sold out). And the shipping of such goods requires more retail space and caution, so it’s important to choose the most convenient shipping hours. This is especially true for large-dimensioned items, such as refrigerators. Most often, stocks of cameras, smartphones, mobile headsets, navigators, sound bars are replenished during night shifts. The equipment is updated up to 4 times a week.

Other product categories

Stores ship daily the goods that are not in the list of electronics/food/groceries. This usually happens between 7:00-13:00. There aren't many visitors in this period. But during swing and night shifts, stores receive goods because these working hours are less busy and often coincide with the closing time.

Why is there no exact restock schedule?

Many buyers ask when does Walmart restock. But there is no exact answer to this question. Products are always updated as needed. This approach may not be very convenient for the store, but it’s done for the customers’ convenience and quality service.

This reduces a risk that some product is not available to nil. Of course, there are exceptions, but they constitute isolated cases.

This is convenient when people are shopping, and they know for sure that they can buy most of the goods. Depending on the remaining items in stock in the warehouse and the demand for goods, shipments to each supermarket are individual.

It’s also not always possible to calculate the exact time due to logistical features related to transport equipment and mileage.

Duration of the restocking process

It takes up to 2 days to unload one shipment. But for each item, an individual unloading time is calculated. Besides customer demand and products’ shelf life, a rate of updating can be affected:

• seasonal features (for example, a lot of pumpkins are bought in October when everyone is preparing for Halloween);
• holidays (at Christmas everybody strives to brighten a house with lights and Christmas-tree decoration);
• purchasing power (if the price of a certain product increases, then most likely soon there is no rush to buy it, and a restocking is not required).

Sometimes buyers have to wait until an updated shipment. If time is running out, you can create an online order with delivery through the official Walmart store. Couriers bring goods directly from the major warehouse.

If you need to find out the exact date of a new arrival, you can use information in the online store.

Restock for Internet purchases

Products for online sales are also replenished as needed, and their logistics are usually more complex: sometimes shipping fees are already priced in, and supermarket costs may vary. Therefore, a demand for products also depends on the pricing policy. However, regular updates are carried out for the most popular and strong-demand products.

There is no risk that some items will not be included in the order. When creating an application, the customer is always notified of unavailable products. But there is one disadvantage in the online store: Walmart official website can only give information about deliveries to specific stores. Info about deliveries to the major warehouse is closed, so offline purchases are still a more reliable option.

So, when buyers see a product in stock and there is a possibility that it may disappear from sale again, it’s worth hurrying with the purchase.

Other options for getting information about updating the product

To find out the latest news, customers should apply Walmart's native smartphone application called «Search My Store». There, you can find information about restock in the nearest store by entering the product in an empty request typebar.

Another handy function of this service is the ability to find out in advance the actual goods’ placement in the store while making an offline shopping. So customers don’t spend time on searching the items and save their energy.

Useful service

If customers are eager to receive timely information about the expected product, or they monitor closely a specific thing, it’s worth registering a personal profile on the Walmart website and setting up e-mail notifications about the products of interest. Thus, you no longer have to waste your nerves and allocate a few minutes a day to be aware of events constantly. But the major disadvantage of this service is that not all product categories can be tracked. Also, such a service applies only to goods for online shopping and doesn't apply to food products and goods that are not frequently updated, such as digital devices.

Assortment

Each Walmart store has approximately a similar list of products, but it’s logical to assume that in about 4,500 stores of this retail chain in different regions of the US, the product range may differ not only depending on the demand and people’s lifestyle in each state, but also on regional characteristics, logistical factors and farming.

So, prices and even the goods differ. For example, in the southern states, Walmart stores have more fresh tropical fruits and vegetables because of their proximity to South America, and they are cheaper, since they cover a shorter distance during transportation.

If the selling points are in the same county or district, then the products and prices are approximately equal. In any case, Walmart sets market prices and doesn’t operate at a loss.

Feedback

One advantage of shopping at Walmart is the fact that staff tries to heed the wishes of their customers. If buyers want the store to add an object to the product grid, they only need to let managers know about it. The steps are simple: on the official Walmart page, go to the reviews and comments section and leave your suggestion, justifying your point of view. You can also ask interesting questions there, which the company's employees try to answer promptly.