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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

#181

Post by fma »

chadash wrote: 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…

FYI Target has a service called "Restock" where you can get items the next day. I've used it a few times and it's not bad. You can buy detergent and they'll overnight them from some warehouse in Illinois or whatever (I live in Georgia...). I'm sure the shipping costs them an arm and a leg. I think they can streamline their operations but maybe they just wanted to get out a MVP.

Only time I had an issue was last time I ordered formula for my infant it came a week late. It was really an issue of the courier (FedEx) but I got a refund, and the formula came a week later...so free formula. Yay?

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

#182

Post by dfrage »

lintroller wrote: post #142
objektif wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart did realize what AMZN did with prime membership. But they probably also realized their customer base wont pay for another membership.

They already have a bulk retail subscription with Sams Club. A membership that includes access to both the retail store and one-day walmart.com shipping could be attractive.

Possible evidence they could be thinking about this: a few minutes ago I filled out a survey of their's about my last Walmart.com purchase, and one of the questions asked was if I, or an immediate family member had a Sam's Club membership.

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

#183

Post by whoisjuan »

vfulco2 wrote: post #114

I tried to get a pair of airbuds delivered to upstate NY. Two weeks after they were lost in transit, WMT put the onus on me to speak with the shipper and track down. I canceled. Amazon has nothing to fear.

That Amazon announcement was a bait in disguise. Amazon can pull this off because they have massive logistics efficiencies that are optimized for their e-commerce business.

Walmart has to do way more because their core business is still walk-in retail. They have to literally force their model to make this happen and that's why you get low reliability on the customer offering and an unprofitable dynamic in the business operation.

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

#184

Post by axaxs »

codemac wrote: post #91
igetspam wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure you'd report that as taxable income, so it would probably be closer to 'post-tax'.

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

#185

Post by fma »

alttab wrote: post #37
hef19898 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coming up with a next day delivery service on scale for every brick and mortar retailer out there sounds like a good start-up idea. Kind of Uber for Walmart or some such thing!

Who says that once Amazon figures out one day delivery at scale that they won't sell it as a platform? Seems obvious. Uber says that they are the Amazon of Transportation. I'd argue that Amazon is the Amazon of transportation.

Actually, Amazon just announced they are willing to throw money at you to start a company to do delivery for them.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/13/amazon-offers-employees-10...

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

#186

Post by wpietri »

joering2 wrote: post #38
wpietri wrote: 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…

At least for me, the USPS often does last-mile delivery for Amazon. Given that Amazon has already made this work, it seems reasonable to think that Walmart could have made it work as well.

And personally I haven't had them lose mail in years. I know this varied by region, so maybe it's just where I live now. But if anybody can make a large organization up their game, it's another large organization who is paying a lot of money.

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

#187

Post by ghaff »

paulddraper wrote: post #175
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…

So...you need a bigger mailbox?

Not an option for everyone obviously but it's actually not a bad idea. I got an "extra large" rural mailbox a few years back and it's been great. Not everything fits of course but most basic book and small to medium parcels do. It also means I don't need to get my mail held even if I'm out of town for 10 days or so. My postal carrier even thanked me for getting it at one point.

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

#188

Post by dfrage »

bradenb wrote: post #73

I actually ordered a CPU from Walmart.com a few days ago. It'll take a week to get to me, but it's still amazing to me that the order happened at all.

My goodness, they sell a bunch: https://www.walmart.com/search/?cat_id=0&facet=retailer%3AWa... (substitute amd for intel in that query if you prefer) including a $1,629 Ryzen Threadripper $70 cheaper than Newegg, free 2 day delivery or local store pickup. The multi-thousand dollar Xeons seem to be more in the receive next week category, but a couple of the most expensive 18 or 28 core, $3K plus or minus, are 2 day, at or just a bit more expensive than what Newegg is charging for them.

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

#189

Post by ivl »

mikestew wrote: post #156
ivl wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good may be a bit too generous to Craftsman. I've never found their hand tools reliable. Their powertools less so. Worst was a ratchet where the first thing to break wasn't one of the teeth on the gear, but instead the pawl, meaning instead of simply slipping and still being mostly usable, it became immediately useless. Which is just annoyingly bad engineering.

Depends on one's window of time when buying Craftsman. Anything in the last ten years is definitely crap, fifteen-twenty years ago was becoming hit-or-miss, anything older than that was definitely good. My father was a tool-and-die maker since the 60s, and always had Craftman tools. Err, correction, still has; I'm sure a ratchet or two has been lost to abuse (i. e., "cheater bar"), but last I checked the vast majorit…

Oh I'm well aware they used to make very quality products. Craftsman at one point was re-branding high quality products, like Abus locks. But that was again, 50 years ago. Their recent tools have left me disappointed with issues coming up far too soon. Not that I'm easy on tools but still.

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

#190

Post by burkaman »

amelius wrote: post #123
wpietri wrote: 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.

> What I wonder: why did it take them this long? What I wonder: why didn't USPS start an e-commerce business?

I think that would require at least an act of Congress, if not a constitutional amendment. It also would need a huge initial investment to succeed.
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