Walmart has announced the grand opening of its fifth next-generation fulfillment center, located in Stockton, California. Spanning a massive 900,000 square feet, the sprawling facility is designed to significantly increase the retail giant’s storage capacity while accelerating order fulfillment across the state of California and the broader West Coast.

The strategic expansion comes as Walmart continues to solidify its powerhouse status in the digital retail landscape. Currently, Walmart holds the No. 2 position in Digital Commerce 360’s Top 1000 Database, which rigorously tracks North America’s largest online retailers by their annual ecommerce sales. In addition to its stellar performance in traditional digital commerce, the company is also recognized for its forward-thinking technological investments, ranking No. 37 in Digital Commerce 360’s AI Commerce Rankings, a prestigious set of metrics available through the Top 1000 Pro with AI Database.

What distinguishes Walmart’s new fulfillment center in Stockton

At the heart of Walmart’s state-of-the-art Stockton facility is a cutting-edge, automated, high-density storage and retrieval system. Rather than requiring human workers to travel the vast warehouse floor to collect items, this sophisticated technology brings products directly to associates.

According to Walmart, this automated approach radically transforms the labor-intensive workflow, compressing what would otherwise be a traditional 12-step fulfillment process down to just five streamlined steps. By eliminating unnecessary physical transit and repetitive motion, the system frees up associates to focus on higher-value tasks within the operation, blending human oversight with advanced machinery.

The deployment in Stockton is part of a much larger automation push across Walmart’s vast supply chain footprint. Company figures shared with investors alongside fiscal Q2 earnings results indicate that Walmart now processes more than half of its total ecommerce fulfillment volume through automated facilities. Furthermore, automated freight handling has been integrated to some capacity across 3,100 of Walmart’s retail stores throughout the United States.

When combined with Walmart’s broader, nationwide fulfillment network, these next-generation centers allow the company to reach an impressive 95% of the total U.S. population with either next-day or two-day shipping options.

“We’re bringing together associates with advanced technology and automation to create a safer, more efficient operation that can fulfill more orders and get products to customers faster,” said Karisa Sprague, senior vice president in fulfillment operations at Walmart U.S., in a written statement. “This facility is an important investment in the Central Valley and a critical part of how we’re building the next generation of Walmart’s fulfillment network across the West Coast.”

Fast delivery’s importance for Walmart

The relentless pursuit of speed has become the bedrock of Walmart’s overarching ecommerce strategy over recent quarters, yielding tangible results in customer acquisition and retention.

During the first fiscal quarter, Walmart U.S. online sales surged by an impressive 26%. Executive leadership has frequently pointed to delivery speed as a primary catalyst driving this expansion globally. Thanks to dense local networks and optimized supply chains, Walmart can now reach approximately 60% of the U.S. population with delivery windows of 30 minutes or less—a rapid delivery capability that has now been successfully scaled across 38 major U.S. markets.

At the same time, store-fulfilled delivery has more than doubled over the past two years. Demonstrating the hyper-local efficiency of its physical footprint, more than 36% of those store-fulfilled orders are now delivered directly to consumers in under three hours.

“Speed matters, and we have a significant competitive advantage,” Walmart CEO and president John Furner told investors during an earnings call in August, emphasizing the company’s unique positioning as both a brick-and-mortar titan and a digital delivery juggernaut.

How Walmart Fulfillment Services will use the center

Significantly, the massive Stockton facility is not solely dedicated to supporting Walmart’s traditional first-party ecommerce operations.

Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS), the retailer’s comprehensive end-to-end third-party fulfillment offering designed for marketplace sellers, will also leverage the space. Independent merchants selling goods on Walmart.com will have access to the center’s advanced capabilities to store, pack, and ship their customer orders. This multi-use approach makes the grand opening directly relevant to the rapidly growing base of external brands, manufacturers, and distributors that rely on the Walmart Marketplace to reach consumers.

The integration of third-party merchants into Walmart’s high-tech logistics framework comes at a time of explosive growth for the service. According to John David Rainey, chief financial officer at Walmart, units shipped via same-day or next-day delivery through WFS grew by nearly 150% during the first fiscal quarter alone, underscoring the vital role that shared infrastructure plays in the retailer’s ongoing digital transformation.