Hacker News Reader

Comment by Spooky23 | Hacker News Reader

Walmart has some weird cultural issues that make store operations hard to adapt. It’s a pretty miserable place to work. They hire anyone, turn them out quickly, and have weird work rules for things like gathering in a group.

Target’s pickup operation is superior in every dimension. They made the decision to put it front and center, and their employees seem happier. It takes <3 minutes to have a Target person drop stuff in your car, Walmart requires scheduling and is usually late.

The other issue they have is that their logistical operation is best in class for retail, but not so good for shipping.

View on HN

This is really the problem with everything Walmart has done wrt eCommerce/online pickup IMO - It's like all the pieces are there, but they can't bring them all together.

I've hit their website from Google looking for an item, and the lead time to ship is 2+ weeks and it's highlighted that it's sourced from a partner.

Putting aside the obvious - it's just a worse deal. For most items, they're competing with 1-2 days, a product page packed with verified reviews to help decision making, a company with top notch customer support/return policies and the price is usually the same or cheaper, there's other issues at play too.

It's subtle psychological cues. First, the way they highlight that it's from their partner almost makes it seem like they're doing dropshipping, they don't actually know if it's in stock and I can order and they will put a hold on my credit card. Maybe I'll get it in 2 weeks. Maybe a month. Maybe the order will eventually be cancelled or I will go through a nightmare dealing with their support or having to do a chargeback.

I'm not going through all of that stuff in my head, it's just my mind in the background doing pattern matching with other bad experiences I've had shopping online.

I understand it takes time and truckloads of money to get something even close to what Amazon has, but it also requires good leadership at the executive level.

The one area that Walmart could absolutely crush Amazon in would be picking up your order online, same day. Walmart should be able to leverage all their experience with brick and mortar to do this.

Instead, they're flagging behind Target. Their solution is pretty middle of the road, all the big retailers have something similar.

Amazon bought Whole Foods, so they have a footprint, just like Walmart has an online store. Based on how these companies have executed which do you think happens first? Amazon nails in person pickup or Walmart nails online shopping.

'Amazon nails in person pickup or Walmart nails online shopping.'

Amazon has nailed free shipping with prime. In person pickup costs money in time, fuel, available vehicle. Feels like checkmate in 2021 but this may change

I dislike Walmart rather intensely but I know if I order a new Kitchen Aid mixer from them I’m going to get a new Kitchen Aid mixer. Ask me how I know the same isn’t true of Amazon. No matter how good your delivery logistics, it’s not “nailing it” if I get the wrong thing fast.

I’ve commented on this before—you kind of don’t. It will be a true KitchenAid brand, of course. But the actual machine may be compromised. Walmart places intense pressure on their suppliers and often sells Walmart-only SKUs made of inferior parts and materials.

I bought rope there (in a physical store) a few months ago, for tying down furniture in a truck. Got home, cut the rope, it was a foam core with braiding around it to make it seem like true rope.

This applies to their food items as well, by the way.

Maybe you just bought floating rope? There are a bunch of floating rope products that advertise foam cores.

Nope. I know what floating rope is and that was nowhere on the packaging. It was also the only rope for sale in the store, alongside (very cheap) carabiners etc. and not in a boating or pool section.

A thousand nods of agreement. I tell everyone that will listen to stop buying from Amazon and feeding the beast. They know that they have a counterfeit problem and they refuse to face it. I suspect that someone has done the math and figured out that most people won't figure it out or complain so it's more profitable to just let the common binning continue.

That’s the thing with Walmart, they aren’t shady enough to play the same game. Once you break out of the Amazon bubble of faith based “Amazon is amazing!”, it’s just retail.

Once you get out of the Amazon funnel, why go to Walmart? There’s a hundred retailers that sell genuine KitchenAid mixers. Pick the one with the best price, or color scheme you prefer.

I think combined shipping can be a huge attraction factor for an Amazon or Walmart.

If you want to buy a $150 mixer, but also, say, a $10 book and a $5 cable, you'll be able to put those all in one cart at those vendors and get free postage.

If you go to some specialty mixer retailer, you'll have to buy the other items as a seperate transaction and pay for shipping on them.

I know in my household, we definitely will ask around "I'm buying something from Amazon, so I'll already be spending $25, does anyone want anything else on that order?"

Do you really though? They do the same third-party seller thing as Amazon.

It's not third party sellers, it's comingling inventory from third party sellers. That breaks the reviews / reputation as a way to check, and it means if there's even one bad egg, even if I buy from Amazon itself, I can still get the wrong product.

Selling fake products masquerading as a real ones. That’s literally the worst case scenario for a customer.

If I buy a product and it has issues—okay, it happens. Maybe I post a bad review or just don’t buy it again.

If I buy a product and it’s something else, the seller should be ashamed of themselves.

I have bought (and returned) countless fraudulent books from Amazon to the point where I had to weigh the books, count the pages, and compare with publishers.

And then I closed my prime membership and I’ll take the longer wait times for a real product.

It seems to me Amazon's comingling is bad for competition. Players on their platform, not between Amazon and others.

Have any of the regulators taken note?

I've been reading Congress' anti-trust research and reports. Haven't seen this called out yet.

Legal thinking shifted towards a price focused for all things antitrust. You can be a monopolist, as long as you don’t quickly raise prices. That’s why 3 companies control 90% of meat packing.

Companies like Amazon are carefully engineered to avoid that type of enforcement action. Nothing will happen until you have a major political shift - I’d guess somewhere around 2035-2045 when demographics shift the political dynamic in the US.

I usually filter by "Retailer: Walmart.com" for any common and/or name-brand item (and price/shipping is usually better than 3rd part sellers anyway). You still have to take your chances for more obscure items, but at least for me that's rare.

> Amazon has nailed free shipping with prime.

Not everywhere. I didn't renew my prime subscription a few years ago, because they rarely met their delivery times and I was starting to get broken, counterfeit, and obviously returned/resold items.

Never paid Amazon a dime for Prime, like ever. I’m sure I’m missing something but in general shy away from any and all subscriptions.

I consistently and daily choose no, fuck off and give me the free shipping I’ll wait. If I don’t have enough in my cart for free shipping I wait and add more to my cart later

I'm with you on anything charged monthly, even though I feel Amazon Prime Videos outshines Netflix in terms of good older movies.

That said, I know too many people who renew Prime like it was a church tithing. (Yes--I know about their yearly deal.)

It's not movies these people like either. These people love the formulated crap Netflix vomits.

Your post resonated with me because I try hard to avoid any monthly fees for any product. Plus--unless you order a lot, people are just giving Amazon free money.

You just reminded me to cancel Apple storage.

A click and collect / in person delivery has benefits too though:

* It’s cheaper for Walmart as it can ride on the back of an existing trunk from a logistics perspective.

* Dependent on how confident you are on stock, Walmart could offer “instant” click and collect on any range in stock in store. This does depend on inventory policies and is more complicated than it initially seems though.

* It gets someone in your store which has an umbrella effect as they are likely to purchase something else.

Most are benefits for Walmart, but the lower delivery cost can be passed on to customers and instant pickup is great for customers when it happens. Furthermore, click and collect is great for people in flats or where leaving a parcel isn’t practical.

To be clear, I think it's way more important for Walmart to nail online shopping than vice versa, but clearly Amazon feels having a physical presence is important.

2 weeks is exactly how long it took to get an item, and they lost 2 other orders and had appalling customer service. I had to resort to a chargeback in order to get my money back. They couldn't find or bother to find the order in their system.

I've given up on Walmart online ordering after a couple experiences where my order was fulfilled by a dropshipper who bought the wrong item and had it shipped to me as a gift through Amazon. Massive confusion all around, and it ended with cancelling and getting a refund from Walmart.

You’re just describing how Target and Walmart have different business models, same as CostCo does. There’s a continuum there. Walmart has lower profit margins, lower prices, stocks many more items, has many more options for size rather than all bulk and will hire far lower quality workers. CostCo is at the other end on all of those and Target is intermediate. People really, really care about price.

I’m fairly certain Costco has lower prices and profit margins than Target. So it’s not “on the other end on all of those” with Target being intermediate.

Costco also sells in much larger sizes, so while the price may be lower on a per unit basis, you often pay more overall. It’s a trade not everyone wants, e.g. lack of space to store bulk goods in a small apartment. Costco, Target, Amazon, et al compete on some sort of n-dimensional plane with price, size, shopping experience, brand, etc all play a part. It’s not a line.

Costco's high barrier is the membership cost where they derive a substantial amount of their profit.

A few years ago, I would agree with you on profit margins at Costco.

I do not see deals anymore. Sure they like to bundle (especially in threes), but the product is usually the stuff that isn't selling elsewhere, and the price isn't much if the consumer divides by 3.

I used to buy there all the time because of the no question asked return policy. That has changed. They question a lot more than electronics returns too.

Oh yea, most high end watches you see in the case are Grey Market bought, and have no manufacturer's warranty.

What's keeping Costco happy is the membership fees. That is pure profit.

the spectrum seems accurate for the employee pay I think.

Walmart uses their market size to force suppliers to produce special packaging for Walmart that is a slightly different sized box for many food items, where that product is a bit lighter than the same sized box at another retailer. The catch is Walmart advertises their price, which looks lower in print, but if one purchases that product at Walmart and also at another grocer you will find the Walmart version is slightly more expensive by weight, holds less than the other same sized box but labeled with the correct weight. Only a careful consumer will notice that Walmart costs more, if calculated by weight.

I'd just like them to observe Walton's imposed limit of no more than two customers in line. I'm getting really fed up with retailers that won't staff their registers. And no, self checkout is a slap in the face where you exit the store as a presumed criminal after providing free labor. It's like they want me to buy from Amazon.

The store I regularly go to has eighteen or twenty registers, and I've never seen more than three staffed. This issue has persisted for years.

Biggest reason I don't go grocery shopping at Walmart. Doing a full cart through a tiny self-checkout area is a PITA.

Self-checkout? Best invention of the 2000's

Sorta. Took them a while to turn it off criminal mode. Wasn’t long ago you had to bag an item before you could scan the next. But I have more than 1 hand. Sometimes multiple people.

French ones still run in criminal mode.

They’re in criminal mode in the US depending on the store location. 2 Safeway’s about a 10 minute drive from each other have opposite policies, also the more poor the area the less likely to have self checkout at all

The checkout situation alone has made it so I haven’t gone to my local Safeway in almost two years except to use the DMV registration machine. The self checkout is almost unusable, and ever since the private equity buyout years ago I’ve never seen more than two normal registers open at once.

Private equity is synonymous with “customers and employees will suffer” in my mind.

I get really miffed at how our system of economics seems set up to destroy rather than promote the common good.

I’ve walked out of more than one Safeway because the self checkout refused to let me proceed and nobody was helping. Those machines are so shitty, they’ve gotten better but I still try not to use them.

Oh the anxiety of having kids and those. Every single bump set it off and required someone to come over.

More then a few carts got left half unloaded.

I’ve had a large person on the other side leaning on it and set it off…

What is criminal mode?

I think they mean when the machine is set to a strict weight measurement tolerance (or similar) so that for nearly every item it complains about putting things into or taking them out of the bag. You often have to call the checkout area minder over to fix it. It makes the process take much longer than it should.

The machines weigh stuff? I don't understand that. Here in Switzerland you just scan the barcode of every item and place it in a bag, done. What is there to weigh?

Also recently I started using what I guess is the Swiss (Coop) equivalent of Scan and Go: I scan with my phone in the aisles, but stuff in my bag directly in the aisles as well, and when I leave the list of items I've taken is transmitted to a classic self checkout machine and I just have to pay. I wish I could avoid the machine entirely and pay from my phone, I assume it will exist one day.

The big bagging area will be one big scale. It's not that big of a deal when programmed correctly. You can place your own bags on it too (but there's usually a button you have to press so it tares it correctly).

The scanning area will have it owns weight sensor for unweighed fruits and vegetables. This scale is usually calibrated/verified by a government body because it relates to pricing. In Europe, it's common to bag and weigh your produce in the produce section, but in N. America, it's integrated with the checkout process.

I live near a Walmart "flagship" store and they are/were testing out a system where you scan items are you pick them and then can bag them in your cart, with a special aisle for exit. I suspect the cart also goes over a scale and they determine if it matches correctly.

I guess the Walmarts near me are different. I just scan stuff and I can either bag it on the platform or put it straight into my cart. The portable barcode scanner means I don't need to take the 50lb bag of dog food out of the cart either. There's no special aisle to exit, you just leave the regular way.

The special aisle is for this system where you scan items as you take them off the shelf.

Checkout-as-you-go instead of filling your cart and checking out at the end.

Now that would be cool. I can't wait until they have it around here.

That and when you can’t pick up multiple packages of something, scan them and then bag them all at once. You have to complete each individual process before starting the next.

Painful for small items or when you have a helper.

It’s great when you want to buy a few things. It’s terrible if you have a cart full of things.

This is how I view it. There's a Publix just down the street from my work, and I always use self-checkout there, but when we're shopping for home (full cart), we don't even consider it an option. I don't think Publix checks your cart or anything, so it's not about that. Last time we went shopping, there wasn't a bagger, and we didn't mind, so that's not it either. I think it's just that it's a lot quicker for them to scan your items, and you don't have to pay extra attention to make sure you've scanned everything.

Related, Publix is one of the South's top selling points. It's easily the best grocery store I've used. Up until I moved to Florida and experienced Publix, all grocery stores felt more or less the same.

it depends for me it is almost universally better unless something has a security device on it. on the other hand i worked as a cashier and latter lead cashier (i trained all the new cashiers on how to use the register) for years while in collage. So I can get through my cart much faster than most whoever is working the check out just because i know whats coming and what should be bagged together optimally. and then also the lack of forced social interaction makes me far happier.

Safeway has this problem.

Safeway has managed to piss off every singe one of their employees.

My local Safeway couldn't find help for years.

Since the epidemic, that is changing. They are hiring people who don't care much about conditions, or pay, and I know I'm suspose to say that's great.

Those people will get tired of being treated terribly in the future though.

I bet Safeway is lobbying the state right now to allow booze sales through self-checkout. The only people I see in line waiting five deep is liquor sales.

Free labor - not with the portable scanner type of self-checkout. You put stuff directly in your bag instead of the cart, so no extra effort is necessary. Although tbh, even the scale-type machines are quicker to use than waiting in line. They do perform randomized checks, but very rarely and only 3 items ie 1-2 minutes total delay.

Plus with contactless payment my shopping is an essentially frictionless walk through the store building.

I look forward to a car-wash pickup. You arrive. They scan your plate. You go through the 5 minute car wash and at the end they fill your trunk.

The rules against gathering. in a group are not just weird. It’s a blatant anti-union mechanism.

As a customer visiting any store (not just Walmart), it is rather frustrating to need assistance from an employee but unable to find one until you find a gaggle of them all "hanging out". I have no idea what they are doing. They could be talking about unions, they could be talking about the weather, or they could all have just completed assiting the movement of a heavy item require 4 "teammates". Either way, it is not a good look for the customer.

Having worked retail stores, you really underestimate how little time you have as any individual to get your shit done and also help customers. That gaggle may be them deciding how to make the store look right with only 4 people when normally it’d take 8.

If you want good customer service go somewhere they dont cut corners on staffing while paying the heroes that have to do 3 people’s jobs minimum wage.

>That gaggle may be them deciding

Then take that gaggle to the back in a meeting room so that it's not visible to the customers.

>If you want good customer service go somewhere they dont cut corners

Where does this exist? I'm free this weekend. I'll see about taking a visit to this magical fairy land you speak. /s Seriously though, what public facing retail store doesn't cut corners on staffing or any other aspect? I need to expand my list of stores not on the "disgusted with" list

> Seriously though, what public facing retail store doesn't cut corners on staffing or any other aspect?

Food co-ops and independent/small chain grocers. We are fortunate to have a good density of these in the Seattle area and PNW in general.

http://northwestgrocers.com/?page_id=12

> Then take that gaggle to the back in a meeting room so that it's not visible to the customers.

Maybe they don’t care about offending you? Just a thought.

I don’t know why any of those three possibilities qualifies as a “bad look”. They’re working humans with needs, just like anyone else. It’d be like saying it’s a bad look whenever a few programmers are at a computer. What could they be doing?

Why would you even try to compare coders to customer service oriented jobs? No computer coding company has ever had a slogan similar to "We're here to help". Every big box retailer promotes their employees being there to assist their customers. That's why the all wear the same color blue shirts, orange aprons, etc so that they are easily identifiable to customers looking for assistance. That's their job, at least part of the job.

A few years ago Walmart came out with this bizarre simulation game(?) where you “work” in their store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/spark-city/id1435371389

> It takes <3 minutes to have a Target person drop stuff in your car

In my experience, it's rarely as low as 3 minutes. It's often quicker for me to go in and get in line at the customer service.

> Walmart has some weird cultural issues that make store operations hard to adapt. It’s a pretty miserable place to work. They hire anyone, turn them out quickly, and have weird work rules for things like gathering in a group.

Is any company in retail any different? Except for the "hire anyone", most people would probably say that describes Amazon.

> It’s a pretty miserable place to work.

Huh sounds a bit like another company I happen to know

ScAmazon.

The other problem is substitution. WalMart will sub something different as if it's the same. They also assume you picked up if you go anywhere near the store.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com