Walmart is building giant towers to solve the most annoying thing about online ordering
The first kiosk appeared in a Walmart store in Bentonville, Arkansas last year.
The company is now rolling them out to more than a dozen stores in cities including Gilbert, Arizona, Glenpool, Oklahoma; Enterprise and Auburn, Alabama; Gwinnett, Georgia; and Midlothian, Virginia.
The kiosks, which Walmart calls Pickup Towers, are massive - standing at least 16 feet tall and about 8 feet wide - and they are typically located near store entrances.
To use the tower, customers scan a barcode located on their purchase receipt, and within 45 seconds, a door on the machine opens and the items appear on a conveyer belt.
A customer of the Gilbert, Arizona, Walmart store told Business Insider that the service is a vast improvement from the retailer's regular in-store pickup process.
The machine's giant size is due to the fact that it holds tons of packages inside. While it requires a lot of space, it's more versatile than pickup lockers - which Walmart has also tested - because it has the ability to adjust the size of the compartments where packages are kept.
Walmart recently started testing a similar concept for online grocery orders.
The company also rolled out a new discount this year for shoppers who purchase items online and pick them up in stores.
The discount allows shoppers to save as much as $50 on the purchase of large items like flat-screen televisions.