Walmart In Amarillo Remodel To Provide Customer-focused Features

With so many different places around Amarillo shutting their doors or letting people go because of the economy at the moment, it's refreshing to see that some businesses are actually renovating and making things better.

If you've been in or around the Walmart on Grand St. over the course of the last several months, you may have noticed there was a lot of movement going on, both inside and outside. Well, that moving and shaking has reached its completion.

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On Friday, April 26th, they hosted their grand re-opening with a big ribbon cutting ceremony. Now, they weren't actually closed during the remodel, but it's definitely a completely different store in there.

I had a tendency to frequent this particular store when I lived off of Washington. Truthfully it was one of my go-to places when I wanted sports cards. They were the closest place to me that carried them.

I recently went in there after my sons had some games over at Rick Klein and was blown away by the changes I'd seen inside the store. It had been a couple of months since I'd set foot in there, but everything was completely different.

First off, the sports cards were gone. That was a bummer. I'm down to maybe two retail locations to pick those up at now. The biggest change I noticed though was the checkout area. It was COMPLETELY different.

Gone were the majority of the checkout areas where an employee would do it for you. Those had been replaced with a plethora of self-checkout lanes. I found that interesting considering the amount of people who say they can't stand self-checkout.

No longer can you just make a direct shot to checkout either. There is a long pathway you now have to take, almost like going through a maze, just to get to the checkout. A bit inconvenient if you ask me, but hey, it is what it is.

I haven't seen other changes to the store, but they stated that the renovation was about creating more “customer-focused features.” I think the introduction of 90% of their checkout lanes moving to self-checkout kind of defeats that purpose, but maybe it's just me.