A top company official from US based retailer Walmart has announced that it will open 30 wholesale cash-and-carry stores within India in the next 3 years. The company, which opened its first fulfilment centre in Mumbai last year, recently launched its second fulfilment centre in Lucknow. It also has plans to launch 2 stores this year, 8 stores next year, and 10 stores in the year after that. The company plans to add a total of 50 stores on the Indian map in the next 5-7 years, said Walmart India President and CEO Krish Iyer.
Currently, Walmart operates 21 cash-and-carry stores under the name ‘Best Price’ in 9 states across the country, including Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Telangana, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh.
Walmart India, which has also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the government of UP to open as many as 15 stores in the state in the next few years, has already finalised 3 sites, and is presently looking at 6 more locations within the state. Some of the probable locations for its Best Price stores in UP are Kanpur Muradabad, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Sharanpur, Lucknow and Ghaziabad.
Talking about Walmart’s second fulfilment centre in Lucknow, Iyer said: “The centre will contribute to the state and local economies by creating over 1,500 direct and indirect local jobs, developing SME suppliers, and empowering local communities. Besides, with this initiative we are taking another definitive step towards building an impactful distribution ecosystem by working with our partners”.
Walmart business in India is currently booming, as it gets nearly half of its business through out of store channels such as B2B e-commerce, associates driven sales and call centres, while the rest half of the its business still comes through traditional store walk-ins. Walmart also recently acquires homegrown e-commerce business Flipkart for $16 billion, already making Indian online sellers jittery due to the of fear being wiped off, as the American retail brand has a reputation of killing small businesses with its cut-throat pricing.