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Walmart announces next-day delivery, firing back at Amazon

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Re: Walmart announces next-day delivery, firing back at Amazon

#11

Post by burger_moon »

m52go wrote: post #4
hef19898 wrote: post #2

That is maybe the first sign of brick and mortar retail finally waking up. Considering that technically they have one fulfillment center in every small town they should be able to achieve really short lead times out of these. Fulfillment Centers obviously being all their stores. While it is a non-trivial thing to connect all these stores to last mile courier services it is not necessarily overly complex. Just what th…

> That is maybe the first sign of brick and mortar retail finally waking up. Hasn't Walmart been inching into this space for a while? I already cross-shop with Amazon all the time, and for me Walmart's delivery is often quicker than Amazon's already.

Ya I order from Walmart online all the time for dry food, for years now. Their delivery wasn't next day, but usually a few days which 99/100 times for me is more than fine.

Re: Walmart announces next-day delivery, firing back at Amazon

#12

Post by thebigspacefuck »

Amazon has rolled out same day delivery for my area and it is too convenient to pass up. I used to go to Brick and Mortar to get my items faster and I felt good that I was supporting them, but now I will have a hard time saying no.

Walmart has always had a terrible website experience for me. It's difficult to find items that will be in store for pick up and difficult to tell which items are part of the third party marketplace. Going to Walmart in person is equally terrible. There are so many trashy people I just stopped going, even though the prices were lower. It's the worst of both worlds.

I hope that same day delivery becomes something that every b&m retailer can provide regardless of their infrastructure. Maybe this is through Amazon or another third party. I'm wary of giving Amazon too much, but maybe this is the future and everyone else needs to get on board.

Re: Walmart announces next-day delivery, firing back at Amazon

#13

Post by hef19898 »

m52go wrote: post #4
hef19898 wrote: post #2

That is maybe the first sign of brick and mortar retail finally waking up. Considering that technically they have one fulfillment center in every small town they should be able to achieve really short lead times out of these. Fulfillment Centers obviously being all their stores. While it is a non-trivial thing to connect all these stores to last mile courier services it is not necessarily overly complex. Just what th…

> That is maybe the first sign of brick and mortar retail finally waking up. Hasn't Walmart been inching into this space for a while? I already cross-shop with Amazon all the time, and for me Walmart's delivery is often quicker than Amazon's already.

Walmart, yes. But at least in Europe (France and Germany at least), the last mile is still outsourced to the customer. Giving all the smaller delivery services in every city retailers always had the possibility to offer these services. That they didn't allowed Amazon to become as big and successful. Still, Amazon executed almost perfect on that opportunity.

Since I always wondered how it would look like if that window closes I am happy that I might get a first glimpse.

Re: Walmart announces next-day delivery, firing back at Amazon

#15

Post by aeturnum »

I've been trying to use Walmart for most of my household internet shopping needs because I dislike a lot of Amazon's practices[1].

In general Walmart is...ok. Their shipping times are pretty accurate, though they will sometimes split up shipments and don't clearly inform you. It also seems like their shipping pipeline is a lot rougher on boxes than Amazon. I ordered a window-mounted AC unit and the box showed up wrecked - the unit was badly dented and never worked.

Like Amazon, they have the problem of "seamlessly" integrating 3rd party sellers into their store which means you need to look closely or 4/5 things in your order will arrive day after tomorrow and 1/5 will arrive in 2-3 weeks.

[1] Walmart is no picnic either, but only so many companies can ship me the random products I've gotten used to.

Re: Walmart announces next-day delivery, firing back at Amazon

#16

Post by AlexB138 »

It's good to see some viable competition to Amazon, but it's regretful that it comes from, and probably can only come from, another mega-corporation with an extremely poor track record around worker treatment.

I wonder how viable some sort of supply-chain co-op would be. Basically, get all of the medium players together to share resources to try to match these gargantuan companies on the delivery and returns front. It just doesn't seem possible for them to match these companies on their own, and a third-party would basically just be UPS.

Re: Walmart announces next-day delivery, firing back at Amazon

#17

Post by hef19898 »

josefresco wrote: post #10
hef19898 wrote: post #2

That is maybe the first sign of brick and mortar retail finally waking up. Considering that technically they have one fulfillment center in every small town they should be able to achieve really short lead times out of these. Fulfillment Centers obviously being all their stores. While it is a non-trivial thing to connect all these stores to last mile courier services it is not necessarily overly complex. Just what th…

>Considering that technically they have one fulfillment center in every small town Sorry to nitpick with an anecdote, but the closest Walmart to me is over 60 minutes away and I don't live in a small town, just one that rejects/blocks "big box" stores aggressively. Walmart certainly has a lot of stores but not everyone has one just around the corner (thankfully)

I know what you mean. Not every town can be like the one with maybe 3k inhabitants and 5 Rewe stores I know in Germany.

But still, 60 minutes means same day delivery without too much hazzle. An advantage Amazon doesn't have. Disadvantage is the considerably higher fix costs of Walmart and the like.

Dropshopping could, theoretically at least in my opinion, provide that geographic reach without adding additional fix costs for a player like Amazon.

EDIT: Typo

Re: Walmart announces next-day delivery, firing back at Amazon

#18

Post by rtkwe »

hef19898 wrote: post #2

That is maybe the first sign of brick and mortar retail finally waking up. Considering that technically they have one fulfillment center in every small town they should be able to achieve really short lead times out of these. Fulfillment Centers obviously being all their stores. While it is a non-trivial thing to connect all these stores to last mile courier services it is not necessarily overly complex. Just what th…

A major hurdle to that is finding the space to pick and pack then organize the packages for pickup by whatever delivery company they create or partner with.

Re: Walmart announces next-day delivery, firing back at Amazon

#19

Post by chadash »

Does anyone know if Walmart has consigned, third party merchandise like Amazon does (e.g. sold by X, but shipped prime)? And if so, does it get commingled with the Walmart supply chain inventory?

My issue with Amazon is that I'm afraid of knockoffs, counterfeits and plain old cheap crap with fake reviews (really, 2000 people decided to review your plastic drinking cups?).

These days, I'm shopping more and more at Target, who offers free two day delivery on orders above a certain threshold, good prices, a curated selection of items, good website experience and most importantly, no third party sellers intermingling their fake wares.

Re: Walmart announces next-day delivery, firing back at Amazon

#20

Post by eitally »

sjg007 wrote: post #3

Target needs to get on this too.

Target started by adapting their supply chain to leverage underperforming brick & mortar stores as distribution centers, which is great. But they really need to up their e-commerce game. The website itself makes product discovery much harder than it should be, and their selection is still far inferior to Amazon & Walmart.
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