The Walmart in-store pickup/returns experience is horrible. Long lines, employees are slow and unorganized. Several times I've gone to pick up an order and waited an addition 10+ minutes to have someone bring the item to the front of the store.
I would say the only thing that makes them competitive is their price.
Walmart quality is miles beyond mean amazon quality. Walmart got where they are from brutalizing their vendors, not their customers. Their vendors are punished for excessive returns.
Yeah, well - I don't like Walmart at all, but I will say I've only been really burned by small businesses. Big box stores just take things back usually. Small businesses can't afford to take returns.
Also, generally you can't get everything you need from small shops, unfortunately.
I've stopped shopping at walmart, as well as all other stores that treat me like a criminal just for walking in its doors. The customer service is terrible, and the employees don't often know anything about the products on the shelves (or not). It's often simpler, faster, and less frustrating to shop online.
This seems interesting, but I highly doubt Walmart can make it work.
Everything about the company screams crap. Every time I go to a Walmart store, I feel as if I lose several IQ points. I have stopped going there.
Their only saving grace, is that I don’t trust Amazon to buy certain things, which means I’d rather buy it from a physical store. But I’d still choose any other company, than Walmart.
But, if they can offer decent delivery, with the option to return stuff, then I might try them out. I dislike returning stuff at Walmart.
I don't necessarily want that, but if every other company is sitting on their hands, it's their loss. Walmart is the absolute worst. They have the size, money, and a decent tech team, but the checkout experience still sucks. At least the last time I visited, it was all self checkouts. Very small kiosks, so you constantly had to stop and tie your bags and find somewhere to put them while you scan more. All while trying to avoid the family next to you ramming you with their cart or their kids running around you, since the kiosks are less than a cart lengths apart. Assuming you are lucky enough to pay without needing to wait on an assistant for the inevitable machine issues, you'll then be stopped at the door and have your receipt checked if you have anything you decided not to bag. It's literally the worst checkout experience I could dream up.
I have given Walmart a fair chance on a number of occasions. I received damaged and used goods for my trouble. The store gave me a huge hassle when I tried to return the items ( i.e. a PlayStation that had been smashed to pieces ), they treated me like I was a scammer/criminal.
I'm going to echo nightski's post here, with my own addition: return policies. Many of you probably don't remember what it was like in the bad old days of those quaint brick-and-mortar retailers before Walmart. You bought something, find out you already had one, or your wife just gone one, or you just didn't need it, and tried to take it back, and they basically just gave you the finger. That "wonderful" "personalized" service from mom-and-pop shops? Mostly myth. Some were good, but it was a crapshoot; many of them were the only such store in town, so prices were horrible and service was lousy. On top of that, operating hours were awful.
Walmart changed all of that. They were open long hours, so you could go after work. You could return anything, for no reason at all, for a full refund. And prices were low, and consistent nationwide. And you didn't have to drive around to several different stores, maybe even in different towns, to get several different items.
Walmart's treatment of the customer is terrible - a direct reflection of their treatment of their employees in my opinion. The same will soon be said of Amazon.
Which is a shame because I can remember a time when both offered amazing customer service.
Yes I forgot that point. Their CS is second to none.
Walmart online has a nice return system similar to AMZ - actually even better as they will send a pickup to your house for most things. But if you need a human, good luck getting anything done.
Target and Walmart take online returns at their stores, which no one in the supply chain likes. They will take bad suppliers to the woodshed if too many returns of an item. Hence they have skin in the game to carry quality products
I pay more to avoid WalMart. I'm not even an elitist, I've just noticed in my area, the greeters are rude. After maybe 3 bad experiences in a row, I've decided to never go to WalMart ever again and it's been over a year since I've shopped there.
It's been a long time since I ordered something from Walmart for in store pickup, but it was a nightmare. Would have been much faster to locate the items myself and go through checkout.
This seems to be a uniquely Walmart experience. I don’t experience it anywhere else in the States.
I no longer shop there and I know of many people who feel the same way. It’s the only store I avoid because of “the feeling of human suffering.” Walmart’s stores are cold and uninviting, the employees don’t look happy to be there, and the shoppers don’t either.
I don’t believe the people inside a Walmart are a representative sample of Americans, the store self selects for people who are willing to shop at a Walmart.
Walmart fundamentally doesn't give a crap about the customer, and it shows. They know that at 2am, they are the only place your gonna be able to buy bedding, a cable modem, etc. and thus will staff the front end with 1 cashier to deal with a line of 20+ customers.
Returns are even worse, they will not comply with the store policy they have clearly printed on the signage behind them (eg: Store credit for an airbed that was defective and brought back the same day).
That being said, Amazon is sitting much worse with me than Walmart right now, over the past year I've had issues with 1/3rd of the products I've ordered off Amazon (bad mouse, Evo+ card performing at 6MB/s when rated for 25MB/s), and I'd never shop at any of the Amazon brick & mortar stores going up in Ballard or other parts of the city due to this. Amazon would likely sell me e.coli covered veggies at their current success rate.
Every time I've had to return something, it has taken at least 20 minutes as there is either no employee or is understaffed with a 5+ person queue.
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