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There was a time that I turned to buying from walmart.com as alternative to amazon, precisely because it wasn't taking the 3rd-party seller approach; but then they decided they had to imitate Amazon. Well, no thanks.
As far as I'm aware they don't comingle 3rd party inventory like "Sold and shipped by Amazon.com" does.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I find particularly annoying is that these online “marketplaces” are not curated - they literally sell anything, probably drop shipped. It used to be that you would shop at a branded store, and there was a level of expectation that they had curated their collection so that it was of a quality that matched the stores brand. Some of their wares may be under their own branding, but they would sell other bands too t…
Are sold by "Amazon", "Walmart", "NewEgg" not curated? Amazon also has multiple curated store fronts, or collections, to my knowledge. In 2022 if you aren't buying "Sold by " on one of these market places then I think you should know what you are getting into.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I find particularly annoying is that these online “marketplaces” are not curated - they literally sell anything, probably drop shipped. It used to be that you would shop at a branded store, and there was a level of expectation that they had curated their collection so that it was of a quality that matched the stores brand. Some of their wares may be under their own branding, but they would sell other bands too t…
Are sold by "Amazon", "Walmart", "NewEgg" not curated? Amazon also has multiple curated store fronts, or collections, to my knowledge. In 2022 if you aren't buying "Sold by " on one of these market places then I think you should know what you are getting into.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a baseline expecting of quality, because Walmart would not be expected to buy from counterfeiters. For example, if I buy 3 mule team borax from Walmart, I expect it to come via official sources. If I buy 3 mule team borax from a Walmart reseller, I have no idea where it is sourced from or how much those entities care about reputation. It could be from 3 mule team, it could be counterfeit.
Branded borax ? It's a mineral, coming out of the same mines no matter what brand you buy.
I assume whatever flag factory in china is cranking out $10 flags doesn't care about the content of what's printed on them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What I find particularly annoying is that these online “marketplaces” are not curated - they literally sell anything, probably drop shipped. It used to be that you would shop at a branded store, and there was a level of expectation that they had curated their collection so that it was of a quality that matched the stores brand. Some of their wares may be under their own branding, but they would sell other bands too t…
Yep, I relatively recently learned about Aliexpress and it seems like most American retailers are just a local cache for them. But if I can order sketchy Chinese knick-knacks directly and skip the markup at the cost of a bit more waiting time, I'd just as soon do that. I've also found the Chinese customer service speaks English just fine and have been great whenever I've had to deal with them.
It's still the best for pricing, and is pretty close to the sources (unless you're hardcore enough to translate Taobao listings and get your own mail forwarding). For example, I got a new smartwatch and wanted some bands in specific colors, and a screen protector. Listings with the exact same images on Amazon were $9-12 instead of $3-4. (And when you compared reviews and pictures, they were probably from the same factory.)
Some small notes about AliExpress:
- Although most of AliExpress's lower prices come from lower cost warehouses and less middlemen, some of it comes from exploiting discounted postage. [That has been improved since 2019](https://www.parcelandpostaltechnologyinternational.com/opini...) but I still get a ton of Kyrgyzstani-labeled parcels that originated from Guangdong or Shanghai/Hangzhou. I don't know if that's above-board or not.
- Sellers can sometimes be deceptive. When I was shopping for LED interior lights for an old car, some lumen ratings seemed accurate and even had videos of it being tested. Others had obviously inflated brightnesses despite having a similar number of LEDs are power consumption. In addition, some sellers will sneak an unrelated cheap item into variants of another item, so the listing has a lower price in search results.
- Packages now take a few days to be consolidated. This is great for efficiency and often means you get slightly faster delivery in your home country. But these packages can still get lost, so you may have to dispute up to a dozen items at a time. I might have to do this soon with all my smartwatch accessories, and in the meantime, pray my screen doesn't get scratched (or eat the inflated Amazon/eBay price).
- Compared to Amazon, they have fewer customer reviews, and don't stack listings for the same item. In disputes, customer service won't always favor you or offer a complete refund for bad items.
- Compared to eBay, they have much worse search filtering. You may wish to consider eBay for a balance of cheap prices and faster shipping, especially when you filter for sellers within 100 miles. Sometimes Chinese eBay sellers are cheaper than AliExpress sellers.
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It has happened to me a few times that I order from Walmart, see a shipment notification, that shipment "arrives" but definitely did not. However that day or the next I receive an Amazon package which I did not order containing my product. So no, ordering from Walmart does not guarantee anything is going through their supply chain.
Was that from Walmart the retailer or someone else selling on Walmart's marketplace? I would be very surprised if Walmart itself resold you something from Amazon, but that does happen with third party retailers on their marketplace.
I’m not exactly sure how they make money as the prices are often nearly identical.
There was a time that I turned to buying from walmart.com as alternative to amazon, precisely because it wasn't taking the 3rd-party seller approach; but then they decided they had to imitate Amazon. Well, no thanks.
Sorry I am confused can’t you filter by Walmart sold vs third party?
The marketplace-ization (is there a word for that?) of every retailer feels so short sighted. I’ll throw out an example I’ve noticed lately - furniture manufacturers. Search for any item on Crate & Barrel or West Elm’s website and you’ll first see a handful of exclusive pieces that are clearly built for the brand. Keep scrolling and the search results gradually become a bunch of generic third party items that you can…
For a while, I used Walmart.com to stock up on name-brand staples cheaply and conveniently, but it got to be such a pain in the ass that I went back to Costco.
So we'd buy the external, take the IDE drive out, and have a cheap 5g IDE drive. And we liked it.