Walmart is totally revamping the store pickup and putting a huge emphasis on it with lots of branding. My store has already switched over to the new system but they may still be in the process of rolling it out. They moved it to the front of the store next to the entrance and you check yourself in on a touch screen kiosk, either scanning a barcode or looking up your order by name or order number. Then an employee gets a notification on a smartphone and they grab your order. There is a status bar on a monitor letting you know what's going on.

When it works it works really, really, really well. I mean, in and out in less than two minutes. However, there was a time the employee didn't get a notification, so it might still need to get the kinks ironed out.

I agree that previously the store pickup was an afterthought and not always run very well.

Yup.

I did an in-store pickup at Walmart last night. I got a text message with the pickup # and when I went there (Walmart's on my way home and I stop there most days), the greeter at the door was the person who got my order. Pickup station was right by the door and I was done in under 2 minutes.

It's improved a lot in the last year!

My walmart in Miami has store pickup right at the front, next to the door and its always staffed by at least three people.

They also have this huge digital tablet thing where you can type in your order id and someone can grab it for you quicker.

At mine, it's at the back of the store near the bathrooms. =(

There's never anyone there and you generally wait several minutes after you've hit the pager on the card reader.

The GP is talking about the new store pickup ("huge digital tablet") but you're talking about the old one ("pager on the card reader").

Your store should switch over to the new system sometime soon.

I honestly don't know why it takes Walmart so long to switch over. I live in Atlanta and I've seen one that has it... And another a few miles away not. I've never used the new layout, but the old one sucks.

I was there to pick up photos (thus store has online pickup and photos at the same place)... They screwed up my order and I waited 45 minutes and left empty handed because no one there knew how to make a photo calendar and doesn't k know where mine went. But I digress.

I basically witnessed 45 minutes of a train wreck of people trying to pick up orders (probably Christmas presents) from a disorganized and understaffed center. No one was happy...

This is the experience we get in our local Walmart as well. The way the local store is run, I would be surprised if there is an upgrade coming for pickups. This is certainly not a commentary on Walmart - it is however a commentary on my area at large as far as retail is concerned.

That's a different experience from my local Walmart. I find their pick-up to be an excellent experience.

It almost always has employees in the pick-up room. If not, you can tap a screen at the counter that alerts an employee for you.

You show your license. It takes very little time to look up the order, they just punch in your order number or look your order up by name.

The pick-up items are all stored right in that pick-up room, so there's zero wait for them to go into another storage room to get your item.

Usually takes a few minutes total. I've used them to do an item pick-up in store maybe a dozen times in three years, zero bad experiences so far.

Don't forget when you can't find an employee or they tell you someone is coming and 20 minutes later no one remembers you even existed.

Exactly, Target's pick up in store is really fast and simple. I had ordered a gift for my friend half way across the states and he was able to go and just pick it up himself the next day