Whether you love Walmart or hate Walmart when you live in smaller towns and cities in Missouri like Sedalia, Warrensburg, or Clinton, there really isn't an escape. Whether you're a fan or not, you will do some of your shopping at Walmart.

One thing Walmart is good at is innovation and trying to give their customers a better shopping experience. Maybe it's their popular grocery pick-up service. Maybe it's their Neighborhood Market concept that's more focused on groceries. Or the low cost of their prescriptions, which was the first thing that got me going to Walmart in the first place.

It seems Walmart is always trying something new. Sometimes it's wildly successful, like when they introduced their grocery pick-up service. Other times it doesn't work as well, like when they tried to give people scanners, so they could scan items they were buying when they put them in the cart.

So what is Walmart trying right now to move the chain's progress forward and continue its dominance in Missouri? Take a look at some of the things Walmart is trying right now, or will be trying in the near future. This is according to an article published by The Sun.

Walmart Health Centers

Have you noticed since the end of Covid-19 Walmart's been pushing vaccinations? Not just the Covid vaccines either. Yearly flu shots, the shingles vaccine, the pneumonia vaccine, all of them. I just got a text yesterday asking me if I wanted to schedule a time to drop in and get my flu shot.

Yet, the retail giant isn't just trying to maximize profits from its pharmacy. Much like how its size helped them make prescriptions more affordable for those with and without insurance, they want to do the same thing with health care. They want to offer dental, medical, behavioral, and psychiatric care at health centers in their stores. Four health centers are currently planned for the Kansas City area.

Expanded Beauty Section

Walmart is expanding its beauty section by 50 products. Olive & June, an at-home nail company will be offering its products like nail tools, nail polish, treatments, and other beauty products in all stores and on their website.

Store of the Future

I always thought the future of Walmart, and perhaps retail generally, would be the pick-up services. You order it online, pull into a spot at the store, and whatever you've bought will be brought to you.

Walmart is banking on that yet, stores are getting another round of makeovers. This time Walmart included bedroom and bathroom displays in their remodeled store of the future to showcase some of their products, kind of like you'd find at Ikea. Additionally, they're adding QR codes to the shelves that people can scan and get more information on the products they're selling.

Considering the stores in Sedalia and Warrensburg were remodeled recently, it may be a while for the Ikea-like displays, however, it wouldn't surprise me to see the QR codes sooner rather than later.

Drone Delivery

One of the other noticeable innovations for Walmart shoppers are the ability to get your stuff delivered from the store. I believe it's a perk of Walmart Plus, their version of Amazon Prime. Yet, Walmart is content to get you your stuff in a couple of hours, how about getting your stuff in 30 minutes?

Thanks to drone delivery, that's already happening at 36 stores in seven states. It might be a while for drone delivery to pop up at Walmart's more rural stores, however, you have to think at some point it's going to become a very common option.

Walmart's doing more behind the scenes to hold onto their dominance, although the following things aren't as innovative, and don't necessarily make the customer experience better. In some ways, they have the exact opposite effect. So what else are they doing?

Walmart is closing underperforming stores, locking high-theft items behind glass requiring a staff member to help customers access them, and one more cool thing called Text To Shop. Text to shop is where you can text a list of things to Walmart, they'll do your shopping, and get you what you brought. It's not that different than grocery pick-up, but texting a list to Walmart instead of navigating their app will make getting your grocery staples even easier than using the app.

One thing's for sure, Walmar'ts working hard to continue to be the successful retail giant they've become.