Walmart Using Digital Menus To Market New In-Store Pet Services Centers

October 9, 2024 by Dave Haynes

US retailing giant Walmart has started opening what it calls pet services centers, offering what amounts to one-stop shopping for routine pet care needs and using big digital signage displays behind the reception desk to relay what’s available.

The stores within the bigger store offer in-person and virtual veterinary care, pet prescription delivery, grooming services, pet food and supplies. The intent is to get a piece of the almost $1,500 per pet US households are estimated to be spending by 2026.

Walmart already tested the concept in one store and announced yesterday it was expanding it over the next month to:

• Cumming, Georgia;
• Alpharetta, Georgia;
• Glendale, Arizona;
• Chandler, Arizona;
• Mesa, Arizona.

Walmart had tried health services for the pets’ owners, but backed out of that earlier this year. The mass merchandiser announced it was closing all 51 of its on-premise health care clinics for people and also shut down a telehealth service it acquired during the pandemic.

It’s interesting to see a big retailer using digital menu displays for something other than food, but also to see a brand that large with PR that has the digital signage component front and center in its promotional visuals. If you’ve been at this for a while, you’ll know how we all used to get a bit excited if a big brand even used a screen somewhere in their designs.