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People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

nytimes.com

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Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#11

Post by lotsofpulp »

ethbr0 wrote: post #10
silisili wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart is getting better, but still way behind on the web front. They'll show you things in stock, then tell you it's out of stock upon checkout. Go back to product page, shows in stock again. They also use way, way too many captchas. Lastly, they divide walmart.com from walmart pickup and delivery for no reason. Some things you order on the .com side are only 'shippable' if your local store has it. So, it's pickup…

> they divide walmart.com from walmart pickup and delivery for no reason I can hazard an informed guess as to why that is -- they built .com as an independent company, in order to get it off the ground faster and with less interference from the brick and mortar side. End result: quick iteration, but now two completely separate supply chains. You'd be amazing how complicated warehousing, inventory, shipping, etc. get…

HomeDepot and Bestbuy are what I would hold up as the best websites. Target is decent too, except they started allowed resellers and I was not as easily able to find how to restrict to items sold only by Target.

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#12

Post by toomuchtodo »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #11
ethbr0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they divide walmart.com from walmart pickup and delivery for no reason I can hazard an informed guess as to why that is -- they built .com as an independent company, in order to get it off the ground faster and with less interference from the brick and mortar side. End result: quick iteration, but now two completely separate supply chains. You'd be amazing how complicated warehousing, inventory, shipping, etc. get…

HomeDepot and Bestbuy are what I would hold up as the best websites. Target is decent too, except they started allowed resellers and I was not as easily able to find how to restrict to items sold only by Target.

Home Depot is good, but their iOS app still lacks a lot of polish around selecting a store, payments, and list management.

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#13

Post by lotsofpulp »

tyingq wrote: post #8
Grakel wrote: post #3

The article doesn't mention Walmart's website, which has become very good and widely used, especially as a more trustworthy source for real products than Amazon.com. Also the article is worded as if Walmart is in decline- the future is bright for both of these companies, not that anyone is concerned.

WalMart does also have 3rd party sellers where you have to watch what you buy. I suppose Walmart has a broader variety of in-house sold than Amazon though.

Walmart has a filter option on the left side to show only Walmart sourced products. (Unlike Amazon).

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#14

Post by lotsofpulp »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #12
lotsofpulp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HomeDepot and Bestbuy are what I would hold up as the best websites. Target is decent too, except they started allowed resellers and I was not as easily able to find how to restrict to items sold only by Target.

Home Depot is good, but their iOS app still lacks a lot of polish around selecting a store, payments, and list management.

What I also like about Target and Hope Depot is I can put my phone number in when I am checking out at the store, and the purchases will show up in my account online so I can reference them later or not need to keep the physical receipt for returns.

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#15

Post by meragrin_ »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #13
tyingq wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WalMart does also have 3rd party sellers where you have to watch what you buy. I suppose Walmart has a broader variety of in-house sold than Amazon though.

Walmart has a filter option on the left side to show only Walmart sourced products. (Unlike Amazon).

Amazon still has one too. It is just harder and harder to get to the point were you are presented the option which might explain why people now spend more time at Amazon.

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#16

Post by ethbr0 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #11
ethbr0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they divide walmart.com from walmart pickup and delivery for no reason I can hazard an informed guess as to why that is -- they built .com as an independent company, in order to get it off the ground faster and with less interference from the brick and mortar side. End result: quick iteration, but now two completely separate supply chains. You'd be amazing how complicated warehousing, inventory, shipping, etc. get…

HomeDepot and Bestbuy are what I would hold up as the best websites. Target is decent too, except they started allowed resellers and I was not as easily able to find how to restrict to items sold only by Target.

Good engineering teams working with KISS frameworks build good sites. Counter example: Sears.

Resellers are a necessary evil for warehouse retail. You need the scale for margin and product diversity for long tail sales, but you've got to keep a tight leash on them. I can't begin to express how unreliable their submitted metadata about listed items is.

I feel like auditing and kicking people off the platform would honestly be the best approach, although that'd probably just cause more fly by night "new" vendor signups.

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#17

Post by toomuchtodo »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #14
toomuchtodo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Home Depot is good, but their iOS app still lacks a lot of polish around selecting a store, payments, and list management.

What I also like about Target and Hope Depot is I can put my phone number in when I am checking out at the store, and the purchases will show up in my account online so I can reference them later or not need to keep the physical receipt for returns.

Definitely, although I wish Home Depot wouldn’t ask each time about the digital receipt. They should (imho) provide a setting to always receive the digital receipt copy (with the email address associated to a credit card number).

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#18

Post by lotsofpulp »

ethbr0 wrote: post #16
lotsofpulp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HomeDepot and Bestbuy are what I would hold up as the best websites. Target is decent too, except they started allowed resellers and I was not as easily able to find how to restrict to items sold only by Target.

Good engineering teams working with KISS frameworks build good sites. Counter example: Sears. Resellers are a necessary evil for warehouse retail. You need the scale for margin and product diversity for long tail sales, but you've got to keep a tight leash on them. I can't begin to express how unreliable their submitted metadata about listed items is. I feel like auditing and kicking people off the platform would hon…

> Resellers are a necessary evil for warehouse retail.

As long as there is a simple option to not clutter my search results with them, it does not affect me whether or not a retailer also sells their website to resellers.

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#19

Post by nerfhammer »

silisili wrote: post #6
Grakel wrote: post #3

The article doesn't mention Walmart's website, which has become very good and widely used, especially as a more trustworthy source for real products than Amazon.com. Also the article is worded as if Walmart is in decline- the future is bright for both of these companies, not that anyone is concerned.

Walmart is getting better, but still way behind on the web front. They'll show you things in stock, then tell you it's out of stock upon checkout. Go back to product page, shows in stock again. They also use way, way too many captchas. Lastly, they divide walmart.com from walmart pickup and delivery for no reason. Some things you order on the .com side are only 'shippable' if your local store has it. So, it's pickup…

One thing I appreciate about home depot's web site: they'll tell you not only whether the item is in stock, but exactly where in a given store it's located

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#20

Post by lotsofpulp »

meragrin_ wrote: post #15
lotsofpulp wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart has a filter option on the left side to show only Walmart sourced products. (Unlike Amazon).

Amazon still has one too. It is just harder and harder to get to the point were you are presented the option which might explain why people now spend more time at Amazon.

They definitely removed it years ago, at least for me. The option to check mark “Amazon.com” as the seller was there and then it wasn’t over and over, and then eventually just disappeared.

Edit: I just searched shelf and hot sauce on Amazon.Com on iOS Safari, and the filter options do not show any way to restrict to items sold by Amazon.com.

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