Wal-Mart to close 30 stores in Japan

Wal-Mart’s Japanese business unit Seiyu announced today (Oct. 30) plans to close 30 of its stores as it seeks to revamp that business with more investment in freshness and online shopping.

The plan outlined by Seiyu also includes an acceleration of store remodels, with enhancements to fresh and deli categories, a major priority of David Cheesewright, CEO of Walmart International.

They have planned 50 remodels in 2015. As promised recently by Cheesewright, the retailer is investing in supply chain partnerships that will enhance production capabilities for fresher products. In this care Seiyu is investing in Wakana, a deli manufacturing operation.

Regarding fresh foods, the company will set up dedicated quality control (QC) facilities and teams at all distribution centers (DCs) by the end of 2015, establishing a system to implement DC-based comprehensive inspections on all major produce items. The inspection results will be shared with suppliers to pursue continuous improvement both in quality and productivity. This QC system will expand to meat and fish categories in the future.

Cheesewright’s philosophy does not lend itself to more stores for the sake of growing footprint, but rather optimizing the stores in place and better equipping this market for e-commerce convergence with brick and mortar. That will include investment in fulfillment and service capabilites in the next three years.

With a goal to expand the service coverage to the entire metropolitan area, the company will accelerate steps to improve productivity of its online grocery operations in order to serve rapidly growing customer needs more efficiently and cost-effectively, Wal-Mart noted in the release.