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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

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A dollar a minute == $60/hr

Or around 120k/yr @ 40hr/wk over 50 weeks, pre-tax.

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

#92
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…

You can search for stuff only sold by Amazon, at least in the UK. You can run a search and then filter the vendor to "Amazon.co.uk" only.

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

#93

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.

Walmart's bad practices by far predate the founding of Amazon and have been well-documented. Walmart moves into towns and undercuts prices on locally-owned stores, putting them out of business and destroying Main Street America. They demand products sold on their shelves reduce the quality enough to make the items disposable, which forces the manufacturing offshore to China or Mexico, further destroying American towns.

As a consumer, Walmart is better than Amazon in the very short term. Long term, both Amazon and Walmart are causing serious damage to the economy of America.

https://www.fastcompany.com/54763/man-who-said-no-wal-mart

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

#94
post #46
post #8

I'm excited for the future when we'll finally have day-before shipping, where ML predicts what I want before I even order it.

This honestly strikes me as getting close to doable. For Amazon to do next-day and same-day shipping with reasonable efficiency, they clearly have gotten good at this on a statistical basis, as the stuff needs to be in the warehouse in advance of shipping. A plausible next step to me is something like the Amazon Corner Store, where they have neighborhood caches of goods. I go to order something and they say, "Hey, we…

Argos here in the UK basically do that now, they have loads of physical locations and will do same-day delivery even if the item is out of stock at your nearest branch.

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

#95
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…

>It's one of a few things that perplex me about Amazon

Their price match policy is pretty silly too. I bought a robo vacuum that got a $150 off promotion a week later. They were unwilling to refund me the difference but are willing to let me return the old one for a full refund while buying a new one at the discounted price.

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

#96
post #8

I'm excited for the future when we'll finally have day-before shipping, where ML predicts what I want before I even order it.

They have a patent for that. Where it actually predicts what you will order and they ship it to a distribution point closer to you.

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

#97
post #8

I'm excited for the future when we'll finally have day-before shipping, where ML predicts what I want before I even order it.

The analytics are there. There's that classic article from some years back about a Target knowing that a woman was pregnant before her dad did because they were sending coupons for items related to pregnancy. The issue is now making a goo d product out of the service that people want.

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

#98
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At present Walmart does not commingle its inventory with 3rd party sellers. Things sold 3rd party are also shipped 3rd party so it is currently immune to the counterfeit problem that amazon is having.

It may be worth noting that Walmart has a lot of products on the shelf designed specifically for them to be cheaper. So, not counterfeit, but the SKU might not be exactly the same as another store.

Yeah but your Walmart phone charger will likely charge a phone. Your amazon counterfeit won't even have pins in the usb cable.

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

#99
post #8

I'm excited for the future when we'll finally have day-before shipping, where ML predicts what I want before I even order it.

I've assumed that's been coming for a while—Amazon ships you something they think you'll want, and you ship it back if you don't. There are probably legal hurdles, but.

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

#100
post #19

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 Tar…

At present Walmart does not commingle its inventory with 3rd party sellers. Things sold 3rd party are also shipped 3rd party so it is currently immune to the counterfeit problem that amazon is having.

That's not entirely accurate. Walmart offers DSV (drop ship vendors) which is basically inventory as a service. Walmart pays the third party sellers for storing and shipping the item, but takes on the overhead of customer service and returns. The customer is never made aware of the fact that they bought it from a third party because even the shipping label is customized to match Walmart's labels.
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