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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

#231

Post by reshie »

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…

the funny thing is a lot of times they will us something like ups or fedex(even though those services will do it) and then locally let usps deliver to door. i have had issues with usps as well though.

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

#232

Post by bluGill »

duckfruit wrote: post #197
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.

I can attempt to answer this. (Disclosure: Used to work at Walmart, though as an engineer not an ops person). Most of the stores are optimized for in store shopping. What this means in practice is that the actual back rooms where the products are stored are relatively tiny (on the order of less than 10-15% the floor space of a typical Supercenter). The whole operation is designed so that the trucks can be unloaded as…

Do they have to? I need toilet paper. I get frustrated with eCommerce sites because they want to to figure out which of the 100 different ones is best - toilet paper is toilet paper. Let me choose based on size of roll and softness, give me the best price that meets my requirements.

e-commerce makes it easy to have a million choices, but my local brick and motor store - because they have limited space - just gives me the choices I care about without too many.

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

#233

Post by pnutjam »

smogcutter wrote: post #228
jefe_ wrote: post #196

Whenever Walmart is mentioned I like to use the rise of Dollar General to illustrate my complete lack of confidence in anything the company attempts. How on earth did Walmart see the rise of Dollar General and not think: hey we could do that, or hey we should buy them, or hey Amazon has slow rural deliveries let's innovate there. They simply gave it a half-effort attempt and then gave up the small town / discount mar…

Dollar General is a vulture that swoops in to clean the corpse of towns that Walmart has killed. Your argument that walmart isn't racing to the bottom efficiently enough could be right on its own terms, but what's the point? It's like arguing over which ocean to dump plastic waste into.

Dollar General and Family Dollar are not Dollar stores. They are small retailers who sell a limited inventory of groceries and such.

They are also closing alot of under-performing stores this year. I think Wal-mart might have known more then people give then credit for.

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

#234

Post by bardam »

octocode wrote: 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.

If by the future, you mean five years ago: https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/18/amazon-pre-ships/

"Amazon has filed a patent for a shipping system designed to cut delivery times by predicting what buyers are going to buy before they buy it — and shipping products in their general direction, or even right to their door, before the sales click even (or ever) falls."

Realistically they were looking at items added to your cart but not yet purchased, and moving them to a closer distribution center in case you purchased.

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

#235

Post by bluGill »

freewilly1040 wrote: post #120
w8rbt wrote: post #113

I'm pulling for Walmart! I've seen the death of so many stores that I dearly miss (Sears, JC Penny, etc.). I can no longer get good hand tools or good t-shirts locally. And, the online stores are full of rip-offs and forgeries. Walmart is the last bastion of honest retail (where I can talk to a fellow human in person). I really hope they make it.

It's so odd to see Walmart getting cheered on as a plucky neighborhood underdog. They were Amazon before Amazon, using their huge scale to drive local competition out of business and relentlessly pressuring suppliers to drive down prices. All that said I'm rooting for them too, simply because competition with Amazon is good for everyone.

Having grown up in a small town, we cheered walmart killing all those little businesses with overpriced goods. Instead of planning the monthly trip to the big city we would head to Walmart after supper and be home before bedtime.

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

#236

Post by bluGill »

freehunter wrote: post #93
AlexB138 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 town…

Good riddance to those "main street" stores and their overpriced business model.

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

#237

Post by zone411 »

gm560 wrote: post #230
moftz wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it lasership? I've had packages never delivered by them. I'm assuming the courier is just stealing them since the package will say "out for delivery" multiple times that day and then never show up. They don't respond to emails or calls so anytime a package is set to come through them, I know that I'm probably not going to get it. Nobody has questioned my reports that the packages aren't getting delivered most of…

Lasership is the worst. Last time they were my carrier, it was marked as delivered with a note it was left on my deck. I don't have a deck.

I had a Lasership package found on the street by a stranger (thankfully he sent it to me with a note).

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

#238

Post by josefresco »

cflyingdutchman wrote: post #222
josefresco wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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)

The stat is that something like 90% of the U.S. population lives within a 15 min drive of a Walmart.

I guess that means I'm a 10%er! Neat.

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

#239

Post by j-c-hewitt »

dfrage wrote: post #177
j-c-hewitt wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About 70% of Amazon sales are from third party sellers. So if you are comparing apples to apples you have to just look at the ~30% that is direct from Amazon. And with first hand experience with Amazon's Vendor program they go further than a lot of other retailers in pushing costs onto their vendors such as making them eat returns etc.

> you have to just look at the ~30% that is direct from Amazon. Except due to commingling you might get something from a 3rd party Fulfilled by Amazon instead of Amazon's supply chain. > And with first hand experience with Amazon's Vendor program they go further than a lot of other retailers in pushing costs onto their vendors such as making them eat returns etc. I know Walmart is very severe with their vendors, do y…

That number is included in the marketplace vs 1P sales. The 3P seller gets credited when their commingled item is sold. Amazon gets credited for the sale when it is the one they own that is sold. That's how it works. A lot of sellers also opt out of commingling so it is really not as much of a factor as is sometimes portrayed. There are only certain kinds of items that are disproportionately impacted by it.

>I know Walmart is very severe with their vendors, do you believe Amazon is worse?

I mean, Walmart is harsh, but Amazon is just an insane robot as it relates to most vendors. Think more maliciously dumb than evil.

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

#240

Post by rovolo »

igetspam wrote: post #214
ghaff wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unfortunately it's a mailbox cluster at the entrance of a rural subdivision. The sizes are fixed and I believed they're property of USPS. An oversized package locker would be a great idea but it's not something I could do as a private citizen.

I'm pretty sure residential mailboxes are owned by USPS. See section 632 at [1]:

> Purchase, installation, and maintenance of mail receptacles are the responsibility of the customer.

You should just ask your subdivision/postmaster about adding a bigger package mailbox.

[1] https://about.usps.com/what-we-are-doing/current-initiatives...

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