For an eye to where fulfillment, logistics, and e-commerce are going, look at the newly opened Walmart high-tech fulfillment center in McCordsville, Indiana.

It's the second of four planned such facilities the company is building out over the next three years. The new approach uses "an automated, high-density storage system that streamlines a manual, twelve-step process into just five steps." The first opened in Jolliet, Illinois.

The five steps are as follows:

1. Unload merchandise into cases that go onto a conveyor belt that routes them to receiving.
2. Receivers break the cases down to individual items that go into totes which the system then automatically moves to one of millions of locations in custom-built floor-to-ceiling structure.
3. Picking involves totes with items being automatically retrieved on receipt of an order and sent to someone at a picking station rather than having personnel walking up to nine miles a day.
4. In the packing process, custom boxes fit the exact size of an order, saving on materials. Packages can be ready for shipment 30 minutes after a customer completes an order.
5. Orders are automatically taped, labeled, and sent to the appropriate area to be shipped.

Currently, 31 dedicated e-commerce fulfillment canters and 4,700 stores in the U.S. within 10 miles of 90% of the U.S. population fill online orders, including third-party sales through the company's marketplace when Walmart handles the shipping. When finished, the new four centers alone could provide one- or two-day shipping to three-quarters of the U.S. population.