What: Significant growth of e-commerce leads Walmart to heavily invest on a new class of sales associates

Why it is important: There are some lessons to learn for IADS members in these times of redefinition of stores and roles: how to ‘market’ a new position to potential recruits, but also handle the attached working conditions. Both Amazon and Walmart are starting to face criticism on this topic.

Walmart has increased its number of “personal shoppers'' to 170,000 this year, doubling the number from 2019. However, the title does not relate to the same position than in Europe or other department stores. At Walmart, this relates to the staff in charge of filling in digital and curbside pickup orders (see our former article on the topic here), hired en masse by the retailer who also pays them higher than the minimum wage.

However, given the fast pace of growth of e-commerce and the success of Walmart +, some workers start to complain about working conditions.

This is one of the fastest growing jobs at Walmart