Grocery pickup coming to Wal-Mart

Online service to debut at select locations

Chardon’s Walmart Supercenters is one of the five Greater Cleveland locations selected to debut an online grocery service.

Walmart Pickup is a free service enabling customers to order groceries online and pick them up at their local store without leaving their cars.

The other Northeast Ohio stores chosen to launch the service are in Wadsworth, Strongsville, Elyria and Avon.

“At Walmart, we have always been known for saving our customers money and, with services like grocery pickup, we are also saving them valuable time,” said Walmart Ecommerce Market Coach Andrew Bounds in a news release. “Our customers have told us that grocery pickup is a game changer. They are now able to complete their grocery shopping in a matter of minutes – between errands or on their way home from an after school activity – without even unbuckling their seat belts.”

Walmart’s grocery pickup service features 30,000 items. More than 90 percent of customers

order fresh meat, dairy or produce items, the release said. Other top picks include after-school snacks, diapers and large bags of dog food. How it works: • Customers visit walmart.com/grocery online or through the Walmart Grocery mobile app, enter their zip codes to select a local store and begin creating their shopping lists. During checkout, they indicate a time to pick up their food.

• Staff trained to serve as personal grocery shoppers fill the orders.

• At the pickup location, there are reserved parking spaces marked in orange and a designated number to call to alert an associate. An associate will retrieve

the order and load it into the customer’s car.

If customers aren’t satisfied with an item, they are eligible for a full refund with receipt.

Walmart Pickup first was added in Ohio in the Columbus area, said Spokesman Mark Rickel. This option is now available in more than 600 stores.

This isn’t the first time that Chardon has been among the first in the area to debut a national chain’s new offering. Other examples have included the Bob Evans, Arbys and DQ/Orange Julius redesigns.

“Chardon is being used by multiple corporations to roll out new models for buildings and services,” Chardon Planning & Zoning Administrator Steve Yaney said.