Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by cpascal | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

cpascal

> Other than BestBuy, no other retailer "gets" ecommerce

Target.com is a pretty solid experience.

Walmart.com is also surprisingly good.

Although I'm sure people can provide horror stories for both retailers.

View on HN

Walmart still suffers the same problem Amazon has with 3rd party sellers. Quality can vary greatly depending on who you're buying from on their platform.

Target and Best Buy definitely nailed it.

If you have an ad blocker.

Target sells ad space to random 3rd parties.

Walmart has been spot on with both their delivery as well pickup-in-store items. I wish they installed FREEZER SILOS at all of their locations for their pickup-in-store FROZEN foods that can be ordered online. Right now only select places have them. You cant order frozen foods online at the rest of the locations. But otherwise they have been great with all of my orders.

HomeDepot and Lowes are a joke. HomeDepot.com even tried to sneak in a 'handling fee' at the checkout ( paraphrasing I forget what they called it ) for a small kitchen appliance though it said 'free shipping' at first glance next to the item description.

I've personally had a lot of issues with Walmart.com.

Their inventory data seems to be a bit messy, I've seen a lot of product names/images/descriptions that are clearly messed up, and on more than a few occasions, I've received a single item when the listing said it was a multi-pack. Also, some of the inventory counts are a bit weird -- sometimes an item will show in-stock on the product page, but not in the cart, at the same time.

In the past I had a lot of issues with their shipping, but they seem to have mostly fixed those. Stuff like those huge stickers over important parts of the product, or improper packing.

We have been trying to use Walmart for groceries, it is okay, but too often they substitute what we don't want. There is a reason we ordered mild not spicy: the kids won't eat spicy hot foods.

We have had great experiences with Krogers substitutions. Usually, the substitute with a greater quantity for the same price or better quality.

I'll toss Staples on to there. I ordered a chair two years ago. Relatively modern website, free delivery, and it arrived earlier than anticipated with no damage. Just make sure you unsubscribe from their newsletter.

I also think they'll price-match.

I was surprised when I ordered from Staples.com a week or two ago. They have a top-tier e-commerce experience, fast shipping (I think my free one-day shipping was a temporary quarantine thing), and they seem to be better at packing than Amazon.

I've had nothing but excellent experiences ordering online from staples, although their email notifications leave something to be desired. I've learned to just trust that my package is actually on the way now, but usually I get the "your package has shipped" email some time after I actually get the package, if I get a notification at all.

newegg.com is great. They primarily sell computers and office equipment, but if I'm buying that stuff, it's my go-to. Fast delivery, fantastic customer service. If something is defective, they'll send you a replacement with a return shipping label, no questions asked. Been using them for nearly 20 years without a single complaint.

10 years ago I used Newegg a ton, but with third party items now mixed into their store, I find shopping there a bit more of a dice roll.

Amazon suffers from that as well. I'm loath to buy anything from Amazon, Newegg, or any other retailer when it comes from a third party seller. As far as I know, that's always indicated on the product page. They don't hide it, but they don't aggressively inform you either.

Since Amazon commingles inventory, it doesn’t matter if it says shipped and sold by Amazon since the item you get could still be supplied by a third party.

100 percent this. I dropped NewEgg when they added third party sellers.

I was just comparison shopping for an HDMI adapter across Amazon, NewEgg and Bestbuy. Out of the 3 I found NewEgg still to be the best even with the 3rd party sellers mixed in. Amazon the quality looked super sketchy for some of this stuff and for Bestbuy the website had loading problems, an unintuitive UI for store selection (and put me into a store in CA for some reason even though I'm nowhere near there and had no VPN).

Monoprice is a good place to go for adapters and cables and such.

Thanks, I'll check them out

I always press the "Seller: Newegg" button. This way I never get counterfeit stuff. On the other hand, specifying the seller to be Amazon on Amazon.com sometimes yields third party products in disguise.

I have decent luck with Microcenter as a Newegg substitution. + if you live in some cities, they have brick and mortar

Hmm? Newegg is a Microcenter alternative if you live too far away.

Their return policies are not good. Amazon will take things back, without fuss. Newegg will charge a very hefty restocking fee, or might not even take it back at all. It is very unfortunate to see this have happen, because I remember in the early 00's they built their business on providing the exact opposite kind of experience to that kind of nickle-and-dime technique that was commonplace at the time.

Yeah I got a pair of raspberry pie to play with running Kubernetes on bare metal while I’m stuck at home. No delay no extra shipping cost.

Walmart has been quite reliable for grocery pickup. I’ve tried Hy-Vee and the experience wasn’t very good. Lots of stuff sold out or not picked. Target has given up on grocery curbside as well. But for household goods it works well. I’m trying our local supermarket curbside next so hopefully that will work out. I know we are in crazy times but I’d be really cool to get a dedicated grocery curbside / delivery operation with only warehouses and no stores. I think the UK has something like that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com