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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

#51

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 ma…

Are you actually getting one day deliveries in a day? I always got two day deliveries on time before the switch, but so far the vast majority of my one day shipping items are coming late. It's not a big sample size, but 7/9 were or are currently late.

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

#52
post #33

What I wonder: why did it take them this long? Walmart has warehouse-sized stores that are close to almost everybody. And most of America's houses are already visited 6 days a week by a delivery person. Walmart could and should have made a deal with the USPS a decade ago. It would have been great for all concerned. Instead, they let Amazon practically own the concept, eating away at their huge distribution advantage.

Deal with USPS? Would be hard to find a manager who can make this work and not obviously post it as a huge disaster on their resumee. USPS continues to bleed money, is always understaffed, continues to misplace the mail and is bugged with pretty old technology that is hard to upgrade. Add unions to it and you have a perfect government entity altho USPS is not actually a government organisation. If anything it would m…

Wow.

USPS continues to bleed money but that's due to the mandate from Congress about pre-funding pensions. That's a requirement that nobody else has - see the articles about the 3rd-largest coal company declaring bankruptcy and shedding its pension obligations.

Is always understaffed? Yeah, there are lines a lot of the time. So go to USPS.com if you can and buy postage online. Go to the offices that have ATM-like machines if you can't. My usual problem is that I have a letter that I don't want to send Priority Mail and I've gotten out of the habit of having 10 different amounts of postage labels.

Misplace the mail? I signed up for their service that sends me a picture of almost every piece of mail that gets delivered. The last problem with the mail that I can remember having was dropping off a check at the airport while leaving on a trip. The contractor suggested that mail there got extra inspection, which delayed it. I'm not sure that's right but I can see somebody dropping something "bad" in the mail right before they leave the city/state/country.

They're certainly not perfect and I bet it's not any more fun to work there than when "going postal" was a thing. But I'm pretty happy with USPS.

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

#53

I hope they can do a better job than Amazon but I'm not confident. I'm currently gaming their system of one day delivery failure credits because they can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact hat USPS won't deliver to my door and the packages are too large. USPS gets a box, it won't fit, they take it back to the post office and tell me I can pick it up the next day. I contact amazon, tell them it's late because…

That effort does not at all sound worth a $5 Amazon gift card

There's almost no effort. It takes less than five minutes each time, to both order and request a credit. I've wasted a lot more time than that on trying to get them to remove USPS as a shipping option. At this point, it's just a game for me.

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

#54

I hope they can do a better job than Amazon but I'm not confident. I'm currently gaming their system of one day delivery failure credits because they can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact hat USPS won't deliver to my door and the packages are too large. USPS gets a box, it won't fit, they take it back to the post office and tell me I can pick it up the next day. I contact amazon, tell them it's late because…

Amazon has ten to twenty thousand new trucks for delivery and yet I am getting split deliveries from orders still. Example, ordered three items recently and UPS used one package in the morning and Amazon delivered the rest later. Wal Mart has improved but their use of Fed Ex has seen an order split as well between Fed Ex and Fed Ex Home all on the same day.

I am just amazed Amazon ran the numbers and determined spinning up an entire last mile delivery process was cheaper than using the previous setup.

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

#55

I hope they can do a better job than Amazon but I'm not confident. I'm currently gaming their system of one day delivery failure credits because they can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact hat USPS won't deliver to my door and the packages are too large. USPS gets a box, it won't fit, they take it back to the post office and tell me I can pick it up the next day. I contact amazon, tell them it's late because…

Unfortunately I'm convinced that the only thing this will achieve is getting your account suspended for suspicious activity(a lot of created and then cancelled orders).

Possibly but it's no big loss to me. For years I've been a customer more because of my spouse and my now toddler. As she's getting older, driving to the store (she hates cars) is less of a problem. Amazon, on the other hand, has grown increasingly worse in just about every aspect (quality of service, customer service, employee/contractor treatment, civic duties, etc).

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

#56
post #49

I hope they can do a better job than Amazon but I'm not confident. I'm currently gaming their system of one day delivery failure credits because they can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact hat USPS won't deliver to my door and the packages are too large. USPS gets a box, it won't fit, they take it back to the post office and tell me I can pick it up the next day. I contact amazon, tell them it's late because…

I am in the same boat. I have called and begged and pleaded and escalated to get Amazon to stop using USPS but it just doesn't work. Here in Brooklyn if anything is unusually large they just punch in "attempted delivery" a couple days in a row and send it back. They don't even bother trying, I'm pretty sure it never even leaves the regional sort facility and gets on a truck. I'm not sure I blame them. Amazon once use…

Technically you can flag a shipper. After recording delivery drivers stomping across my landscaping and literally throwing packages at my door, I got them to stop using that particular gig economy delivery service for my packages. Getting them to do feels like pulling teeth though. It seems you can't do it for a single incident but interestingly they'll gladly give you the number to the local shipping logistics company, so you can call and yell at them.

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

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wal Mart's practices have certainly been much worse than Amazon's in aggregate.

How so? As a consumer, I personally have a lot less trust in Amazon. At least with Walmart I know I'll get what I ordered instead of some cheap Chinese knockoff.

Is that true though? I just cancelled an order with Walmart after I noticed it was a 3rd party seller; I have no idea if I would have received a knockoff or not.

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

#59
post #33

What I wonder: why did it take them this long? Walmart has warehouse-sized stores that are close to almost everybody. And most of America's houses are already visited 6 days a week by a delivery person. Walmart could and should have made a deal with the USPS a decade ago. It would have been great for all concerned. Instead, they let Amazon practically own the concept, eating away at their huge distribution advantage.

Deal with USPS? Would be hard to find a manager who can make this work and not obviously post it as a huge disaster on their resumee. USPS continues to bleed money, is always understaffed, continues to misplace the mail and is bugged with pretty old technology that is hard to upgrade. Add unions to it and you have a perfect government entity altho USPS is not actually a government organisation. If anything it would m…

[deleted]

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

#60

I hope they can do a better job than Amazon but I'm not confident. I'm currently gaming their system of one day delivery failure credits because they can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact hat USPS won't deliver to my door and the packages are too large. USPS gets a box, it won't fit, they take it back to the post office and tell me I can pick it up the next day. I contact amazon, tell them it's late because…

That effort does not at all sound worth a $5 Amazon gift card

Or the gas wasted on each trip.
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