Shipping Company Purchases Old Northside Lafayette Walmart Building

The old Walmart building on the Northwest Evangeline Thruway will soon have new life.

Two years after the retailer vacated the Northside facility, a dropshipping company has purchased the property to consolidate its operations and employees under one roof.

Completeful chief executive officer Josh Goree made that announcement Monday morning at the offices of the Lafayette Economic Development Authority. He was joined by LEDA CEO Gregg Gothreaux, Lafayette Mayor-President Josh Guillory, Lafayette city councilman Glenn Lazard, and Lafayette Parish councilmen AB Rubin, John Guilbeau, and Josh Carlson.

Completeful is expected to close its purchase of the building on Tuesday and begin moving its equipment into the facility on the same day. According to Goree, all employees and operations will be moved into the old Walmart building by June 15--the same day the company must vacate its three other Lafayette Parish offices. Goree says the company will occupy about 50 percent of the building's space on day one and will expand from there.

"We are a print-on-demand and make-on-demand dropshipper," Goree said. "We have machinery and software that allows individuals who don't have the capital to buy machines to build or make their ideas come to life. We offer that service for free. They can create as many products as they want. We have an agreed upon price that we make that product for, and they keep the difference once they've sold that product. We make something for $10, they sell it for $20, and they keep their $10 and they don't have to worry about the handling or fulfillment or making the product. We take care of all that."

According to Goree, the company currently has 100 employees on its payroll. He says the company will be hiring about another 100 employees this year, but he says there is no cap on how many people Completeful will hire. Those employees will fill a wide variety of positions, including--but are not limited to--robotics engineers and programmers, business managers, woodworkers, painters, janitors, and business managers. The company's minimum wage is $12 per hour with benefits available for employees. In addition, Goree says the company will offer onsite daycare for the children of Completeful employees. Goree adds that his company will eventually expand into food preparation. He says that will lead Completeful to hire cooks and other food workers.

Completeful will hold a job fair to fill its available positions. A date and time for that job fair has not yet been finalized. Goree says the company will make a concerted effort to hire people from the immediate community.

"We tell everyone there's no cap to how much you can make. We truly believe that. You get in and learn how to work a machine and we say this person is a team leader, they can manage a group of people, (and) they can make good decisions, there's no limit."