The company said it had ended its partnership with Bossa Nova Robotics  who it had worked with for five years to improve customer experience by using robots to assist shop staff and make their jobs easier.

“This was one idea we tried in roughly 500 stores just as we are trying other ideas in additional stores”, Walmart said in a statement.

Walmart added it would continue to test new technologies and invest in its own processes and apps to track inventory and help move products to shelves as quickly as possible.

The outfit started using shelf-scanning robots in 2017 to replenish inventory faster and save employees’ time when products run out. The idea was that it might give Amazon a run for its money.

Walmart, which posted record online sales in its recent quarter, now has more workers walking the aisles to package online orders, extracting new data on inventory problems.