Walmart 'pickup' hits a bottleneck over COVID-19 fears

ROCHESTER - Rochester's Walmart is struggling to get pickup items out of the store because many employees don't want to work due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving a supply chain bottleneck at the Farmington Road store.

One employee who didn't want to give their name said items listed as being available for pickup the same day are now ending up taking two days or more.

The employee we spoke to said a lot of workers assigned to the "pickup" department didn't want to come in because they were concerned about getting the coronavirus.

They also said there was a reduced number of employees in the store overall, and the bottleneck is being felt on food and other store items.

Meanwhile, on the corporate Walmart site, to get on a chat line or talk to a representative can take up to three hours, while a return email can take two days.

Meanwhile, Hannaford ceased its Hannaford To Go program several weeks ago.