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

People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 88 posts

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#31

Post by silisili »

OJFord wrote: post #29
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…

> I really like that for returns, they'll come pick it up. AMZ charges extra for that. Oof, not in the UK. (At least not with Prime.) Perhaps not quite as easy (for small enough items) as when I mostly commuted, and could print a label and leave it in an outgoing mail pile, but certainly from home I way prefer that than going to a post office (even in the absence of coronavirus restrictions). I actually bought a prin…

It actually depends on who their partner is. In my last city, it was USPS, so I could in fact put it with the mail.

Where I live now, Amazon delivers but uses UPS for returns. I can either drop it off at a Kohl's location, a UPS store, or pay for them to come pick it up.

Normally it's not a huge hassle, but it's a really nice gesture to me, especially for heavy items. I almost kept a TV stand, new in box, that I didn't need because I didn't feel like carrying it back into the store. Luckily, that's when I noticed they'll do free pickup on returns.

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#32

Post by handrous »

swiley wrote: post #25
pope_meat wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And some of those 190 even manage to provide healthcare to their citizens, there's no "oh they're just part time citizens, gotta be a citizen for 40 hours a week to qualify for a doctor"

Those countries probably also require upfront price estimates and the hospital admins might not be trained experts in gaming regulation.

Price controls. It's always (AFAI can tell) price controls, whether de facto or de jure. That seems to be the uniting factor in successful healthcare systems. Even Singapore, the closest thing I know of to a "free market healthcare can work!" darling, has some price controls (and uses the very real threat of imposing more to keep the rest of the prices under control).

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#33

Post by oliveshell »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #20
meragrin_ wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The option to filter by seller is still there— barely.

It only shows up if you restrict your search to a specific department, e.g. “Sports and Outdoors”.

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#34

Post by [deleted] »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #20
meragrin_ wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#35

Post by tangoed »

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…

The Walmart.com and pickup/delivery division on their website is not a thing anymore. They seem to be testing a new beta version of the website, and I got to try it yesterday. I have Walmart plus and this is how it went:

One seamless search option, no pickup/delivery and Walmart.com options. I added everything, including groceries and other non groceries to my cart. I selected delivery. Some items were not available in my local store but it didn't matter. Walmart automatically divided my order into two parts, where it decided to ship me some of the things I ordered (chips and club soda) that weren't available at my local store. It was definitely great experience and the UI was clean. I didn't get any out of stock errors at checkout too. Can't wait to use it full time.

The only reason I use Walmart is that I don't trust the products from Amazon anymore, even when they are sold by Amazon. I once ordered shampoo sold my Amazon that was obviously fake, and then I searched around and realized Amazon has a program where they gather the products from different sellers and put it in one huge bin and call all of them sold by Amazon.com

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#36

Post by cpwright »

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.

Home Depot stores the receipts by credit card; so that if you use a card saved to your online account you automatically will see your in-store purchases show up.

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#37

Post by _huayra_ »

Is there a better way than google shopping to find deals across sites for products?

I try to avoid using Amazon out of practical (e.g. products often being cheaper elsewhere, often have less worry about getting some SKU-identical knockoff that amazon absorbed from some FBA hack) and sometimes ideological (a CEO who rides a particularly phallic rocket into space and then gloats about it while his employees are treated like subhuman machines is an infuriating character to say the least).

However, I'm not sure if there is a reliable non-Google way to search a wide variety of other shopping sites without getting hits for bad aliexpress or ebay auctions for clearly stolen / counterfeit items. I already own a pair of Abibas and that is more than enough :/

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#38

Post by dave5104 »

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.

I thought the problem with that was even if you chose to "buy" a product from Amazon, if a 3rd party seller is using Amazon's warehousing, Amazon intermingles products that they source themselves and from the 3rd party? So, you could be getting a product sourced by Amazon, or you could be getting a product sourced by a 3rd party.

Re: People Now Spend More at Amazon Than at Walmart

#39

Post by silisili »

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.

I know I'm starting to sound like a shill, but I'm just impressed with the progress they've made recently... but Walmart does this too.

Any in store purchase made with a credit card saved in your account shows up in your purchase history. Don't even need to type in a phone number :). That's actually really new, they emailed about it sometime in the last month and I can confirm it works.

Post reply on HN