The biggest big-box store of them all is paying keen attention to small-screen shopping. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. revealed details about its mobile businesses and projects in its 22 Annual Investor Meeting last week. The main takeaway: Mobile fosters a more loyal, connected shopper, improves store shopping and serves as a gateway to get store shoppers to shop online with Walmart.com

“When you add it all up here is our plan: We will be the first to deliver a seamless shopping experience at scale,” said Wal-Mart Stores president and CEO Doug McMillon. “No matter how you choose to shop at Wal-Mart—in stores, online, mobile, or a combination of them—it will be fast and easy.”

In particular Wal-Mart noted that many of its customers use mobile devices in-store.  A major benefit of Wal-Mart using the mobile app to improve in-store shopping is that it can change the app on the fly, add new features and test out initiatives without having to make changes to the store, said Neil Ashe, Wal-Mart Stores president and CEO, global e-commerce, who also spoke to investment analysts. 24 million consumers use the Wal-Mart app each month, Ashe said, and the app ranks among the top three retail apps.

“We’re providing services that consistently remove friction to make shopping in our stores easier and more convenient,” he said.

For example, he said consumers can use the app to snap a picture of a prescription label for refill. Shoppers can pull up a baby or wedding registry in the app ahead of a store visit, make a purchase and then have an e-receipt sent to her smartphone. With the Savings Catcher feature, a shopper can scan her store receipt with her smartphone and Wal-Mart will search local store competitors for lower prices on the same goods. If it finds a competitor has a lower price, Wal-Mart will refund her the difference on a gift card.

“We’re layering new digital capabilities over the store experience to transform the shopping for our customers,” Ashe said.

He added that the mobile app is an entry point for forming a digital relationship with store shoppers. Using mobile in store prompts customers to connect with Wal-Mart in a deeper and more engaged way and, most importantly, to shop both in store and online. For example. Wal-Mart said the customer response to ordering groceries through desktop and mobile and them picking up in the parking lot has been “tremendous,” without being more specific.

“They download our app,” he said. “They log into their Walmart.com account and if they don’t have one, they create one and then we have the opportunity to solve so many problems for them. This provides a gateway for them to shop on Walmart.com, which has way more products than what we can put in any of our stores.”

Ashe said today Walmart.com sells more than seven million items and will increase its selection to more than 10 million items by the end of the year.  “Soon we expect that number to be in the tens of millions,” he said.

The mass merchant also is equipping store employees with mobile devices. Wal-Mart in August equipped all store managers with tablets and all department managers with handheld mobile devices, Wal-Mart said in its presentation.  “Both devices provide real-time access to information key to store performance and have moved associates and managers from the back room to the sales floor where they are now serving customers,” said Greg Foran, Wal-Mart Stores president and CEO, Walmart US.

Wal-Mart also said in the presentation that its Sam’s Club membership store, which sells items in bulk at a deep discount, is testing a mobile check-in feature that enables members to put together an order online or via mobile and then alert Sam’s Club when they are in the parking lot by checking in so store associates can assemble the order for pick up. When a member enters the store, the order is ready, Wal-Mart says.