Walmart has opened its fifth next-generation fulfillment center — a 900,000-square-foot facility in Stockton, California — aimed at accelerating online order fulfillment across the West Coast. The center, set to go live in 2026, uses automation to cut the fulfillment process from 12 to 5 steps, double daily order capacity, and double storage density. It follows earlier facilities in Indianapolis (2.2 million sq ft, 2023), Pennsylvania (1.5 million sq ft, 2024), and a planned Georgia site (1.5 million sq ft). Walmart acquired AS/RS provider Alert Innovation in 2022 to deploy this technology across dozens of locations.
According to DC Velocity, Walmart last week opened its fifth “next-generation fulfillment center” — a 900,000-square-foot facility in Stockton, California — designed to accelerate shipping and delivery for customers across California and the West Coast.
Expansion timeline and scale
The Stockton center joins four earlier facilities, including a 2.2 million-square-foot site in Indianapolis that opened in 2023 and a 1.5 million-square-foot facility in Pennsylvania launched in 2024. Walmart also plans to open another 1.5-million-square-foot next-generation center in rural Georgia, with plans unveiled earlier this year.
The Bentonville, Arkansas–based retailer first announced the next-generation fulfillment initiative in 2023. The new Stockton facility brings together automation, machine learning, and advanced material handling systems — building on technology acquired in 2022, when Walmart purchased Alert Innovation, a Massachusetts-based AS/RS startup.
Walmart Fulfillment Services, the company’s end-to-end third-party fulfillment offering, will also use the Stockton center to process Marketplace orders — extending the benefits of automation beyond direct retail fulfillment.
Operational impact and efficiency gains
The Stockton center features an automated, high-density storage and retrieval system that reduces the traditional manual fulfillment process from 12 steps to just 5 steps. This redesign cuts repetitive physical tasks and allows associates to focus on higher-value responsibilities.
According to the report, the new technology delivers measurable improvements: it doubles storage capacity and enables the facility to fulfill twice as many customer orders per day compared with a conventional fulfillment center. These gains directly expand next-day and two-day shipping availability for Walmart customers in the region.
The facility supports Walmart’s broader goal of scaling speed and precision across its e-commerce logistics network — with the Stockton center slated to begin full operations in 2026.
Source: DC Velocity
Compiled from international media by the SCI.AI editorial team.
