Walmart announces next-day delivery, firing back at Amazon
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Walmart, if you can figure out that problem, you'll have my money.
Or around 120k/yr @ 40hr/wk over 50 weeks, pre-tax.
Buy online and save the planet. I'm serious.
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/retailers-are-tracking-...
I'm not sure I blame them. Amazon once used USPS to send me half a dozen office chairs. I called Amazon as soon as I saw the shipping update and said there's zero chance whatsoever they will ever reach my door. Nothing they could do. I just ordered from another vendor the same day and waited the inevitable 2-3 weeks for the Amazon order to work its way through the system and back to Amazon without delivery ever attempted.
It's one of a few things that perplex me about Amazon. Like why can't I just flag a shipping method as unusable. Why can't I search for stuff only sold by Amazon. Why can't you fucking stop selling fake chargers and headphones?
But what do I know about running a multi billion dollar business right?
Their price match policy is pretty silly too. I bought a robo vacuum that got a $150 off promotion a week later. They were unwilling to refund me the difference but are willing to let me return the old one for a full refund while buying a new one at the discounted price.
Just printed the return label for the higher priced item, and slapped it on the box and gave it right back to the carrier when he delivered the same, lower priced item.
The problem seems to be that the local webshops work with the more local delivery services, whereas the brand-site-stores and a bunch of others use delivery services that work across Europe. Those seem to be awful everywhere (the aforementioned DPD, but I've heard similar things about FedEx and DHL).
Ironically, after moving a few miles northwest to the NJ side of the Hudson, my preferred shippers have completely reversed. USPS is by far the best option here, since they have lobby keys to apartment buildings and leave packages with no problems at all. (Even though USPS clearly has lobby keys to deliver non-package mail in Brooklyn too, somehow their package delivery people don't have them?)
Meanwhile, Amazon's contractors have become the worst option for me. Frequently they'll silently leave a package with a neighboring building or business, with no indication whatsoever that they've done so, and with no initial attempt at actually ringing my unit's intercom. Or sometimes they'll call my cell phone, but again without ever trying the intercom first. After a few years of this, I gave up and cancelled Prime.
Yelp, on the other hand, is where "let me speak to your manager"-types go to bitch about restaurants screwing up their orders. BBB complaints seem a bit more fleshed out.
Realistically, I just buy a month of Prime if I know I'm going to be needing lots of things soon (spring cleaning season or whatever), and don't keep an active subscription for the rest of the year. I found myself not using most of the new perks, becoming increasingly skeptical of product authenticity, and not enjoying the prices going up and up every renewal. Its a lot easier to walk over to Target or sit on the train for 15 mins to get to Bed Bath and Beyond / Home Depot than it is to sit around at home all night because Lasership marked my package as "delivered" 6 hours ago but doesn't intend to show up until 10pm.
https://i.redd.it/p816orvkrr021.jpg
Hopefully Walmart will have better shipping logistics.
It happened several times where they used the term "same/one-day" delivery yet at checkout the delivery time was 2-3 days out. So... in other words... they knew damn well what the time frame was, but deliberately chose to use "bait-n-switch" like methods.
Parent was complaining about misadvertized shipping.
It doesn't actually arrive until day 5...
I am just amazed Amazon ran the numbers and determined spinning up an entire last mile delivery process was cheaper than using the previous setup.
The latter detail was the last straw for me and my Prime membership due to Amazon switching to pro forma padding by just throwing in a few air pillows. Between that and all the last mile delivery issues others are reporting, its clear Amazon is seriously pinching pennies in fulfillment without caring how much business and extra expense that costs them. Add in the counterfeit problem and it's hard to imagine how much damage the brand is suffering.
Amazon Fresh used to be quite popular in Seattle a half decade ago, but I barely see their empty containers anymore. I think Amazon saw their volume falling with Amazon Fresh and was threatened by their vendors and wholesalers with higher prices, thus purchasing Whole Foods to attempt to stabilize their cost on goods.
Amazon has been cannibalizing Fresh by including (a smaller selection of) grocery items in Prime Now, which (unlike Fresh, which is a premium upgrade) is included in the base cost of Prime.
For example, you can buy a Philips electric razor through Amazon Prime, but refill cartridges are only available through Amazon Fresh. The result: I made my first online order with Walmart and will probably make many more in the future.
Who's in the right?
The $5 credits they give me are only good on stuff sold by Amazon, which seems to be getting slimmer. I got three things last week figuring I'd get $20 off, and it was only after I checked out that I realized none of them were by Amazon.
Also, the number of people that actually call/IM customer support for a credit is probably fairly low- until everyone starts holding their feet to the fire Amazon will continue to eat the cost.
And given the amount of difficulty and delay it causes, would be worth serious investigation into a solution.
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 Target, who offers free two day delivery on orders above a certain threshold, good prices, a curated selection of items, good website experience and most importantly, no third party sellers intermingling their fake wares.
So, there is a good chance that if you buy something in person at a Walmart that the products you are buying were consigned from the brand, but you would never know. Products stocked at Walmart itself go through a very rigorous vetting process, so in general you will never find anything on Walmart shelves that is truly 100% crap. As far as I know, there is no commingling with Walmart.
All online reviews are fake; there are just some products and places where the reviews are less fake than in other places. In general people don't do as much Walmart review fakery because their website gets so much less traffic and sales than Amazon does. The fakes go where the money is.
Unlike getting a product on store shelves which requires passing through a rigorous, sometimes corrupt, but difficult-to-fake process, getting a product on Amazon or Walmart Marketplace is as easy as uploading a spreadsheet or filling out a product description.
This is the key. For the most part, anyone can sell anything on Amazon. On other sites, even if the reviews are fake, at least there's (generally) someone at the retailer who sanity checks their products for a basic level of quality and provenance.
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?
DG gives an impression of small, local run (which I know they are not) shop with pretty decent service, and walmart doesn't feel like that.
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.
Instead, they let Amazon practically own the concept, eating away at their huge distribution advantage.
USPS's reputation has also saved a few eBay sales, when the buyer said they didn't receive the item. I ask the buyer to please double-check that it didn't get mixed in with the junk mail or something, and say that, if it's not there, I'll refund them in full immediately and ask the USPS Postal Investigator to figure out what happened. Every double-check thus far has found the package.
USPS continues to bleed money but that's due to the mandate from Congress about pre-funding pensions. That's a requirement that nobody else has - see the articles about the 3rd-largest coal company declaring bankruptcy and shedding its pension obligations.
Is always understaffed? Yeah, there are lines a lot of the time. So go to USPS.com if you can and buy postage online. Go to the offices that have ATM-like machines if you can't. My usual problem is that I have a letter that I don't want to send Priority Mail and I've gotten out of the habit of having 10 different amounts of postage labels.
Misplace the mail? I signed up for their service that sends me a picture of almost every piece of mail that gets delivered. The last problem with the mail that I can remember having was dropping off a check at the airport while leaving on a trip. The contractor suggested that mail there got extra inspection, which delayed it. I'm not sure that's right but I can see somebody dropping something "bad" in the mail right before they leave the city/state/country.
They're certainly not perfect and I bet it's not any more fun to work there than when "going postal" was a thing. But I'm pretty happy with USPS.
Ideally, they would get rid of those retiree healthcare and defined benefit pension benefits and just pay their employees more in cash, and let them buy annuities if they want. That would make the whole operation far more transparent and get rid of possibilities of corruption and numbers games being played with these deferred pay agreements.
So if/when they try their little bankruptcy schemes, it won't work.
My wife and I will have different payouts for Social Security, because the younger have been stolen from. Every year that the federal govt adds to Social Security is one year less I get. And that matters to my housing, quality of food I eat, medical help, drugs I need, and basic quality of life.
https://www.ssa.gov/planners/retire/retirechart.html
I pay in the same percentage as older, yet they can retire earlier and get their money. And given my family proclivities of massive heart attacks in late 50s/early 60s, I'll see none of it. And I'm diabetic - this country cares little to none about health care... How many "supplements" will I need for medicare when I'm close to retirement age?
Where I'm sitting, I don't have that much to look forward to, given how much I've (forcefully) paid in. And I have little trust in the chuckleheads in office the last 20 years - since I've been able to vote.
The USPS hasn't actually made those payments in years.
All that the USPS has to do is put aside enough money to pay for pension obligations they incur. That's not "pre-funding" anything. It's paying for an expense that the business incurs. If they can't do it then they're bankrupt and should be reorganized so that they don't incur expenses they can't pay. Coal companies going bankrupt and shedding pension obligations is exactly the thing that's trying to be avoided.
They should probably just switch to defined-contribution plans and abandon the pension program altogether. I imagine politics got in the way of that, and that pre-funding the pension is the compromise position.
This is misinformation that unfortunately has become quite widely spread.
Private employers generally are required to pre-fund their pension obligations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_Retirement_Income_Sec.... FedEx and UPS both have around a 90% funded pension fund: https://www.investmentnews.com/article/20180509/FREE/1805099...; https://www.pionline.com/article/20190221/ONLINE/190229950/u....
What the 2006 postal reform legislation did is require the USPS to pre-fund its retiree health benefits as well. While it's technically true that private employers don't have that same requirement, that is only because their employees are eligible for Medicare. Like other private employers, FedEx and UPS, and their employees, pay the employer/employee Medicare taxes. Postal employees, by contrast, do not pay into Medicare and are not eligible for Medicare benefits.
There is some crazy idea out there that Congress somehow required the USPS to fund its employee health benefits to make government services look bad. That is complete nonsense. When the reforms were enacted, the postal service had a $75 billion unfunded liability for health benefits: https://taxfoundation.org/primer-postal-service-retiree-heal.... Congress saw the impending disaster, and (pretty much unanimously) voted to impose the funding requirement.
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.
What I wonder: why didn't USPS start an e-commerce business?
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 quickly and efficiently as possible, and most of the stuff can be stocked straight on the shelves where it is available for purchase. Inventory held in back rooms are minimal, and all the items in the entire store turn around extremely quickly.
Contrast this with an e-commerce warehouse, which has to deal with a large 'long-tail' of demand. People are used to having a huge range of choice available, and they expect same or next day shipping on whatever they order. Now instead of having say 20 boxes each of 8 different kinds of toilet paper now you need maybe 10 boxes of 100 different kinds, and they all have to be organized such that they're easily accessible to the packing crew. To make an efficient warehouse, you simply need a different layout and assortment of products than is available in your average store. At the same time, the stores continue to generate the vast majority of revenue for your business so you can't mess up their operations too much.
Not implying that it is an impossible problem to solve, simply a difficult one. I'm sure amazon will run into similar issues as they continue to integrate whole foods.
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.
I agree that to do it efficiently at scale, you need to change a lot. But they could easily have started with an Instacart-like approach, where every night when the stores are empty they have people pull and pack from the regular stock. That gets them into the game, and as buying habits change, they can start optimizing for the patterns that emerge. There are a lot of levers they can pull to keep that from disrupting store operation, including geographic rollout, limiting product selection, and marketing spend.
That's not optimal, of course. But neither is waiting until Amazon has a huge lead. So I still feel like they weren't thinking far enough ahead at a business level. Which as Clayton Christensen has shown, is pretty common for successful businesses.
Amazon has skated way out onto very thin ice and is ready for disruption.
How often do you actually get fakes?
My family probably gets an Amazon delivery three or four times a week and we've never received a counterfeit item.
Its perhaps a sign of the times that counterfeits are perceived to be common enough that the natural assumption when this occurs is "counterfeit" not "QC/supply chain issues".
Manufacturers are not great at getting card color to match, even for the same item, even in the same manufacturing run. I've got three kickstarters that have outstanding shipments to send out replacement cards because colors were mismatched on the backs in the very same box, and more that have already done it.
I've only purchased Kingdom Death Monster expansions from the official store, and card colors are hit and miss.
QC on color accuracy is pretty shitty in the popular factories used to produce boardgames, unfortunately.
But one of them was an AC adapter for my laptop :|
After I plugged it in, my laptop smoked. Well, more like sizzled. The manufacturer replaced the motherboard for me. After it happened, I examined the two AC adapters I had (real + not-real) and they were virtually identical except for some font and mark differences.
That was enough for me to change my shopping habits wrt to expensive electronics and to start using review analysis sites for everything.
For example, would you be able to tell if you got a counterfeit tumbler?:
https://youtu.be/WvaTA0K_DZs https://youtu.be/8B12EfGArME https://youtu.be/OfDZZPHByG8
Counterfeits might not last as long as the real thing or, worse, they might but unsafe.
I think I got counterfeit wallet a couple years ago, but I just suspected it of being not built to last, not counterfeit, until I read something on HN last week about Washington State making Amazon get rid of toxic school supplies. I was inspired to look up the wallet again and I found an extremely similar if not exactly the same wallet from a reputable brand but the one I bought was unbranded. I only knew the brand was reputable because I bought something from them before. I'm going to order a new wallet... straight from their site.
Also (not by personal experience) its become quite difficult to get name brand clothing and shoes.
A plausible next step to me is something like the Amazon Corner Store, where they have neighborhood caches of goods. I go to order something and they say, "Hey, we figured you might want that, so it's just down the street if you want to pick it up now, or we'll drop it off later today." Or once self-driving improves a little more, maybe a mobile truck-sized warehouse with delivery bots, so they get delivery times down to 10 minutes or so.
And for the future, they have huge historical baselines for a lot of customers; I've been using them for more than 20 years. Most of the day their software sits in my pocket, so it wouldn't be hard for them to start collecting the sort of sensor data that gives them a very good idea of my activities and metabolic stats. It seems entirely believable to me that they could know that, for example, colds are going around, that sensor data indicates I'm going to feel the symptoms soon, and to dispatch a delivery robot with a package of tissues, OJ, and Nyquil.
Put another way, shit shows up in my mailbox for which I took zero action? Mine now.
"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.
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.
Just what that means for Amazon and retail will be seen. I for my part won't be surprised if Amazon will change its focus more to Walmart. In turn that could open opportunities for new competitors.
Hasn't Walmart been inching into this space for a while? I already cross-shop with Amazon all the time, and for me Walmart's delivery is often quicker than Amazon's already.
Since I always wondered how it would look like if that window closes I am happy that I might get a first glimpse.
Yup. An aircraft carrier cannot turn on a dime but when it finally comes around it's bad news for anyone in its way.
That this isn't easy was proven by Amazon's issues integrating Whole Foods. And Amazon is good at these things.
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)
But still, 60 minutes means same day delivery without too much hazzle. An advantage Amazon doesn't have. Disadvantage is the considerably higher fix costs of Walmart and the like.
Dropshopping could, theoretically at least in my opinion, provide that geographic reach without adding additional fix costs for a player like Amazon.
EDIT: Typo
The bottom line is that Walmart's physical presence in the U.S. absolutely dwarfs that of Amazon... outside of NYC and a couple of mega-urban metropolises, who see Walmart as more "evil" than Amazon because they're in the mindset of still fighting the previous war.
Walmart has always had a terrible website experience for me. It's difficult to find items that will be in store for pick up and difficult to tell which items are part of the third party marketplace. Going to Walmart in person is equally terrible. There are so many trashy people I just stopped going, even though the prices were lower. It's the worst of both worlds.
I hope that same day delivery becomes something that every b&m retailer can provide regardless of their infrastructure. Maybe this is through Amazon or another third party. I'm wary of giving Amazon too much, but maybe this is the future and everyone else needs to get on board.
Uber says that they are the Amazon of Transportation. I'd argue that Amazon is the Amazon of transportation.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/13/amazon-offers-employees-10...
Walmart and others (like Newegg) who have started selling other merchant goods on their website, have made it pretty much clear that I will never buy something not sold by them - exorbitant shipping, terrible pictures and subpar product descriptions for the 3rd party seller items.
The iPad arrived literally the next day. The iPad covers, although apparently shipped from abroad, arrived in less than 7 days. I was impressed. Next time around, I'll definitely be checking out Walmart before I purchase any other items above $100 for sure.
Side note: I never had prime subscription.
I kind of feel the same way, but damn if this isn't one of those things that me from 15 years ago would think was insane.
People like Microsoft? Apple is being brought up on anti-trust issues? Walmart is "good" now? What even is this reality we live in?
Walmart revenue is $514 billion. Amazon revenue is $232 billion. Currently, about half of the retail revenue of Amazon is marketplace sales, where Amazon does not own the merchandise but simply warehouses it on consignment and charges fulfillment fees, or in some cases simply places a drop-ship order for it.
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 you believe Amazon is worse?
>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.
All that said I'm rooting for them too, simply because competition with Amazon is good for everyone.
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.
So when the old farts bemoan that old Craftsman quality, they're talking two decades ago.
I'm rooting for their death, as I have since I first heard about them in the mid 90s, pushing out local music retailers so they can sell the censored, watered-down crap they strongarmed labels into producing.
Never spent a penny there, never will.
I've found local/mom and pop is significantly more expensive, than our national counterparts.
https://efficiencyiseverything.com/dog-food-per-dollar-store...
I don't think lowest income Americans could live at their current standard of living off local mom and pop stores.
The end result was inevitable, however, regardless of Walmart or Best Buy. First Napster, then Apple, then Spotify. If anything, the local music store survived by offering a premium, through their knowledge, sense of community, vinyl offerings, etc. while Best Buy and Walmart have retreated on music sales.
You can stop this type of progress. While the romantic idea of local shops is appealing, the reality is not. High prices, inconvenient hours, and limited selection pale in comparison to incredible selection, low prices, and 24-hour availability.
I no longer choose Amazon, I actively search for the best deal now.
For anything obscure but to big to fit in a bubble wrap envelope you're still going to pay big bucks though.
In general Walmart is...ok. Their shipping times are pretty accurate, though they will sometimes split up shipments and don't clearly inform you. It also seems like their shipping pipeline is a lot rougher on boxes than Amazon. I ordered a window-mounted AC unit and the box showed up wrecked - the unit was badly dented and never worked.
Like Amazon, they have the problem of "seamlessly" integrating 3rd party sellers into their store which means you need to look closely or 4/5 things in your order will arrive day after tomorrow and 1/5 will arrive in 2-3 weeks.
[1] Walmart is no picnic either, but only so many companies can ship me the random products I've gotten used to.
I'm not sure if it was the overall trip or the final delivery but I found the package with the "This side up" upside down. Opened the box and the screen was totally shattered.
Their return process was nice though!
As a consumer, Walmart is better than Amazon in the very short term. Long term, both Amazon and Walmart are causing serious damage to the economy of America.
Much better that we drive out of town to Walmart, pick up dinner at the drive-through, drive home, and never have to talk to anyone or walk on a sidewalk. Much better that the profits leave the town, the county, the state, and move to a corporate headquarters. Much better than the main economic center for a town is outside city limits so the city gets no tax revenue to maintain roads, schools, and water/sewer service. Much better that the taxpayers subsidize those rollback prices that force their employees onto food stamps and welfare checks. Much better that you can buy something so cheaply that when it breaks you just throw it in the ocean and buy another one.
Good riddance to America. The United States of Amazon is just so much more convenient.
There just aren't good alternatives to Amazon in general. Do you have another recommendation? I've tried to use Target but have found their selection to be quite bad.
You could go out and shop locally at small stores when possible if you want. Some argue it's still better to go to a Wal Mart than order from Amazon because it keeps local jobs. I've heard Amazon warehouse work has bad conditions but pays decently and consistently if you're willing to put up with it, while Wal Mart pays less and switches your shifts around but is obviously less labor intensive - various points for each but I have gotten the impression Wal Mart is worse on society overall. I think it's generally a moot point because the influence of the few people who are both motivated to take these stances on where to shop and can afford to is too small to make a difference - legislation and unionization are the most practical avenues.
One part of local shopping I highly recommend is farmers' markets - not just in the sense of not supporting Tyson et al, fresh eggs are great and you can even get different kinds like duck eggs (bigger and taste better), you can get fresh grass fed beef and other meats if you're lucky, and obviously the vegetables/fruits are good too.
Meanwhile, it's the 20s and delivery is still a strategic capability that the largest companies on earth compete on.
When you order something online, instead of shipping it from a warehouse, it is instead shipped directly from a local Target store via UPS (you can tell from the shipping label). I've had several things delivered next day as a direct result.
The major difference is that Target aren't yet advertising that this will be the case, and therefore don't guarantee it or similar. But I anticipate we'll see Target officially announce this service when they've worked out the kinks.
I personally wouldn't say the design aesthetic for either is "attractive", but they're pretty clean and functional, and that is worth a lot. Walmart.com transactions are now a bit easier than Amazon, before you factor in the tremendous amount of effort the latter requires to avoid counterfeits. Walmart.com search is a lot better once you get the right terms, and turn off 3rd parties which they make trivial.
Walmart still does not realize what Bezo's has done with Prime. He has made it the default option and incentivized users to check there first by removing all the friction.
Having these weird caveats and no 'membership' (which again, makes users think of Prime first) is going to keep Walmart behind for a long while.
Walmart's not sitting still.
How is this a shot back?
Does Amazon have a money printing side business that allows them to subsidize/ keep prices near 0?
Until then, this is the equivalent of pissing in the wind.
If I was an investor, this looks like WMT opex just increased big time.
I wonder how viable some sort of supply-chain co-op would be. Basically, get all of the medium players together to share resources to try to match these gargantuan companies on the delivery and returns front. It just doesn't seem possible for them to match these companies on their own, and a third-party would basically just be UPS.