Texas Tech students pitch store of future to Wal-Mart

A group of graduate students from Texas Tech University in Lubbock presented Wal-Mart officials Monday with their computer-generated plans for a Wal-Mart “Store of the Future.”

For this particular prototype, the students said it was important for the world’s largest retailer to take into consideration flexible fulfillment, in which consumers seek a quick and easy shopping experience - a concept the retailer has been fine-tuning for some time.

In a closed meeting with corporate leadership, five students from Texas Tech’s hospitality and retail management program and one doctoral candidate in economics presented a complete layout of the prototype for a new store and made suggestions on how the retailer can use technologies such as smartphones to market to consumers.

Deborah Fowler, adviser for the university’s master’s program in hospitality and retail management, said in a release issued by Texas Tech that the chance to work with the world’s largest retailer was “a unique challenge.”

“No other university will have this opportunity. It’s unprecedented,” she said. Details of the students’ suggestions and findings weren’t made available Monday. When contacted by telephone before the students’ presentation in Bentonville on Monday, Fowler referred inquiries to Wal-Mart.

Deisha Galberth Barnett,senior director of corporate communications for Wal-Mart, said the project is “more of a service that we’re doing to give the students an interesting project they can look at.”

“It really won’t have an impact on our business here,” Barnett said. She gave no other details.

For the project, two of the students used a software program, JDA Floor Planning, to design a 3-D layout of the store’s interior and compile data provided by Wal-Mart. The software program was provided to Texas Tech through a $3 million in-kind gift from JDA. The software is said to provide perspective on retail planning that is unparalleled at the university level.

The team analyzed research on stores’ productivity - sales per linear foot of shelf space.

Texas Tech students also researched marketing tactics, trends within the retail industry and how the layout of the store ensures certain departments can maximize productivity.