This year will be known for many things, and the impetus for a much-needed reinvention of retail will be one of them. Put simply, customers are asking for retailers to show up differently. Walmart is using four new test stores to find solutions to help stores operate as both physical shopping destinations and online fulfillment centers. These locations will serve as test centers to continuously rotate new technology, digital tools, and physical enhancements in and out of the stores with the intention of helping associates better and more easily serve customers.

Product and technology teams will be embedded in the stores to prototype, test, and iterate solutions in real time, scaling what works, and scrapping what doesn’t, creating a true rapid prototype environment. Some areas of focus are:

Omni-Assortment: Currently not everything stocked in a Walmart store can be found online. In these test stores, identifying hard-to-manage categories like apparel and making them available online will allow the retailer to learn what it takes to make in-store items truly omni-available.

Inventory Speed: Walmart developed an app that speeds up the time it takes to get items from the stockroom to the sales floor. Instead of scanning each box individually, associates just hold up a handheld device, and the app uses augmented reality to highlight the boxes that are ready to go. Product gets on the shelf faster.

First-Time Pick Rate: A combination of in-store signage and handheld devices to help associates navigate to the right locations when picking items for an online order will be tested in these stores. Already this simple change has reduced the time it takes for associates to find items. The percentage of times associates find the item on their first attempt has gone up by 20% in some of the categories that tend to be the hardest to pick. This means customers will get orders filled faster.

Checkout Experience: These stores will continue to build upon a new experimental checkout experience introduced earlier this year to help transform a transactional experience into a relational one. Different hardware and software solutions focused on enhancing, and even re-imagining, a contact-free checkout experience for customers will continue to be tested.

“In this new era of retail, assets that used to serve a single purpose will transform into flexible, scalable assets that can be used in multiple ways to serve customers how, when and where they need. Evolving our stores is just the beginning,” said John Crecelius, SVP of Associate Product and Next Generation Stores, Walmart US.