The Gloucester Walmart celebrated a “grand reopening” Friday, as store manager Rick Helton and his team of 385 employees debuted numerous changes to the store that he said will improve the shopping experience.

Among the changes are new floors, an expanded women’s clothing section, higher quality clothing, new seasonal aisles and, most notably, a fully-automated bright orange tower containing merchandise orders for pickup for online or mobile shoppers.

“What I like about them,” Helton said of the new polished concrete floors, “is that before, when we had tile floors, we had to put wax on them. That’s a hazardous chemical, all that goes down the drain basically. Now with the new floor … we only need water to clean this.” With wax and chemical stripper no longer necessary for floor cleaning, Helton said he felt better about water quality knowing this runoff was being reduced.

In terms of sheer square footage, the biggest change is ...