East side Wal Mart in line for upgrade

Georgians: your nearest Walmart could be getting an upgrade.

The company announced Wednesday that it will spend an estimated $38 million over the next year to improve and remodel 11 stores in the state, and to rollout several new in-store and online features for customers.

A release from the company says it hopes to make shopping “faster and easier” for its Georgia customers.

Here are the stores getting upgrades:

• 3245 Lawrenceville Suwanee Road, Suwanee
• 600 Carrollton Villa Rica Highway, Villa Rica
• 5955 Zebulon Road, Macon
• 2257 Highway 515, Blairsville
• 4375 Lexington Road, Athens
• 1436 Dogwood Drive Southeast, Conyers
• 260 Donald E. Thurmond Parkway, Cleveland
• 5200 Windward Parkway, Alpharetta
• 125 Pavilion Parkway, Fayetteville
• 6435 Bells Ferry Road, Woodstock
• 4221 Atlanta Highway, Loganville

“Walmart’s mission of saving our customers time and money is in full swing here in Georgia,” Paul Lewellen, Walmart’s regional general manager, said in a statement. “Over the last year we have added technology to our stores that allows us to keep pace with our customer’s needs, invested in our associates and improved the look and customer experience in our stores – that work will continue.”

New features coming to these and other Walmart locations this year include “Online Grocery Pickup,” “Mobile Express Scan & Go,” and “Walmart Pickup Towers.”

The pickup towers are described by the company as a "high-tech vending machine" and allows customers to pick up their online orders in less than a minute by scanning a bar code sent to their smartphone. This service is currently available at the Walmart in Marietta.

"Mobile Express Scan & Go" allows customers to scan items with their mobile devices while shopping in store, they can then pay instantly and skip the checkout line. This service is already available at all Sam's Club stores in Georgia.

Walmart operates more than 200 stores across the state of Georgia and employs more than 60,000 people, the company said.