Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Walmart announces next-day delivery, firing back at Amazon

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 258 posts

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

#161

Post by kageneko »

criddell wrote: post #108
noonespecial wrote: post #58

They don't need next day delivery. They need a search that works, reviews that aren't fake, and a way to get products that aren't counterfeits half the time. Amazon has skated way out onto very thin ice and is ready for disruption.

> and a way to get products that aren't counterfeits half the time How often do you actually get fakes? My family probably gets an Amazon delivery three or four times a week and we've never received a counterfeit item.

I've had a few fakes or knockoffs -- mostly low-cost electronics that I didn't care too much about.

But one of them was an AC adapter for my laptop :|

After I plugged it in, my laptop smoked. Well, more like sizzled. The manufacturer replaced the motherboard for me. After it happened, I examined the two AC adapters I had (real + not-real) and they were virtually identical except for some font and mark differences.

That was enough for me to change my shopping habits wrt to expensive electronics and to start using review analysis sites for everything.

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

#162

Post by sethhochberg »

CPLX wrote: post #49
igetspam wrote: post #30

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…

Hah, exactly the opposite situation for me with USPS in Brooklyn - they've got a key to my (large) residential building, and are the only carrier who can reliably deliver when my super is busy with something and can't accept a package. I'd opt out of Lasership in a heartbeat if I could, they're wholly useless.

Realistically, I just buy a month of Prime if I know I'm going to be needing lots of things soon (spring cleaning season or whatever), and don't keep an active subscription for the rest of the year. I found myself not using most of the new perks, becoming increasingly skeptical of product authenticity, and not enjoying the prices going up and up every renewal. Its a lot easier to walk over to Target or sit on the train for 15 mins to get to Bed Bath and Beyond / Home Depot than it is to sit around at home all night because Lasership marked my package as "delivered" 6 hours ago but doesn't intend to show up until 10pm.

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

#164

Post by cortesoft »

ukyrgf wrote: post #116
igetspam wrote: post #30

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…

You still get stuff through USPS? Everything I've ordered has been through AMZL, which means 100% of my orders are left at a neighbor's house, marked as delivered and then show up a few days later, or marked as lost after 5 days and refunded. The $5 credits they give me are only good on stuff sold by Amazon, which seems to be getting slimmer. I got three things last week figuring I'd get $20 off, and it was only afte…

It completely depends on where you are. Bigger cities are more likely to use the AMZL system than smaller towns.

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

#165

Post by cortesoft »

kiseleon wrote: post #70
res0nat0r wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way likely for this to be resolved is for Amazon to 100% own the supply chain end to end, which means an Amazon owning last mile delivery company which it seems where most of these delivery issues like. I'm sure Amazon is looking how it can own this part of the chain (along with everything else), maybe someday soon...

About 50% of my Amazon packages are delivered by Amazon at this point (Boise, ID area).

Yeah, I would say 90% of mine are (Los Angeles)

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

#166

Post by degenerate »

UncleChis wrote: post #163

One thing I don't understand why Walmart hasn't invested in: change the web interface!!! Their website is just not attractive at all!!!

They're shooting to keep it as close to the in-store experience as possible, in that regard ;)

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

#167

Post by dfrage »

gtycomb wrote: post #61
igetspam wrote: post #30

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…

Here in Nevada, my experience is that Walmart's online business and delivery is strongly superior. It has been a refreshing thing to see a massive global company turn around and do something very right.

I'm also in flyover country and have found the same to be true, aside from selection. But the products they do directly offer (it's easy to remove 3rd parties from your searches) come from their own supply chain which they really care about, the prices are almost always better than Amazon's, the shipping is fast, and free if you buy at least $35 per purchase, and they pack the boxes with a fair amount of care.

The latter detail was the last straw for me and my Prime membership due to Amazon switching to pro forma padding by just throwing in a few air pillows. Between that and all the last mile delivery issues others are reporting, its clear Amazon is seriously pinching pennies in fulfillment without caring how much business and extra expense that costs them. Add in the counterfeit problem and it's hard to imagine how much damage the brand is suffering.

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

#168

Post by joombaga »

dragonwriter wrote: post #154
joombaga wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it's board games, and more specifically expansions. The last expansion I bought had slightly differently colored card backs than the base game, meaning you could tell if someone had expansion cards and making the expansion unusable. I had to compare them both to a friend's sets to know which was counterfeit.

Outside of the biggest major game manufacturers, that's long been a problem with legitimate board games having inconsistencies like that, for instance because different printers with slightly different process were used for different print runs of the same expansion. Its perhaps a sign of the times that counterfeits are perceived to be common enough that the natural assumption when this occurs is "counterfeit" not "Q…

My natural assumption was "QC/supply chain issues", because I've seen those too. In this case the designer actually posted about the issue on a forum, which was later linked by the publisher.

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

#169

Post by throw20102010 »

igetspam wrote: post #30

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 suspect that the number of people that have to travel long distances (or across a lake) to get something from USPS are pretty rare, so Amazon's just eating the cost.

Also, the number of people that actually call/IM customer support for a credit is probably fairly low- until everyone starts holding their feet to the fire Amazon will continue to eat the cost.

Post reply on HN