Is Walmart trying to discourage online shopping?

AprilSun

AprilSun

Senior Member
Yesterday, I was checking prices on the Walmart site for items they would ship. Most of the items, if not all, would show the price was cheaper by shopping in the store rather than ordering. For example, there was an item that was listed as 3.48 online but also said it was 1.98 "in the store" This wasn't counting shipping. This makes me wonder if they're losing business from people shopping in the stores. I know the few times I've been lately, there wasn't many people there. How is your store doing?
 

They also list items online that can't be shipped to your home. Nothing that would seem to create a problem for shipping; some of them are things I've had shipped to me in the past. I wonder if the sellers of those items don't want to absorb the shipping costs.

If they're trying to compete with Amazon, this is no way to do it.
 
I had heard,on the news, that Wally world would rather have you shop in the stores because you would do more compulsive buying!!
 

I was trying to shop Walmart online a few days ago. I found an item I wanted, put it in the basket and kept shopping. I put a few more items in the basket and when I went back Two of the items I had in the basket had been removed because they were no longer available. These were just common everyday items.

I too switched to Amazon.
 
Ken N Tx said:
I had heard,on the news, that Wally world would rather have you shop in the stores because you would do more compulsive buying!!
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It's not only Walmart....a couple of years ago, the US Chamber of Commerce did a study, and found that on average, most people spend about $3 for every minute they spend in a retail store. I can attest to the validity of that study every time my wife goes to Kohl's. When I go to the store, I get what I need, and get out....maybe taking a quick look at a couple of specific items to see if they are on sale.

When shopping online at Walmart.com...Always look to see if the item is being provided by Walmart, or one of their "associates"...The "associates" are independent retailers who generally sell both on Walmart and Amazon web sites....and their prices are often higher than the same item in the store.
 
I imagine the free 2-day shipping when you spend over $35 must be paid for somehow. I order quite a bit from Walmart and also from Amazon. The increase in price to buy online doesn't bother me since I can sit in my recliner instead of getting dressed and driving 10 miles to the closest Walmart store... where I will end up spending 3x what I intended to!! :D
 
Simplifying my life by making a list and buying what is on the list when going to a brick & mortar store works for me. When my wife wants to "shop" it's to the mall where I find a comfortable place to sit and watch people. She "shops" Thankfully since Amazon Prime became her go to source for all things "wanted" not necessarily needed people watching has been reduce.

She being a concerned about price shopper checked Walmart against Amazon. Walmart lost. She was disappointed so she has no desire to spend online with them.

All I have to do now is figure out how to get her less addicted to the Amazon deal of the day.

One good thing Amazon has going for it is the customer reviews. Knowing the pro & cons before spending helps.
 
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It's getting harder for me to go out and shop. I have cataracts and I won't drive until I get them taken care of, but shopping also requires endurance I don't always have.

I was willing to give Walmart a try, although I always did price shopping among WM, Amazon and Target. Target beats Walmart hands-down on small household appliances; WM and Amazon didn't come close to the great price I paid for my new microwave and vacuum cleaner at Target.com.

It wouldn't be a surprise to learn warring forces within WM are bringing about the negative changes we're seeing. For example, I can't imagine WM's store managers are happy about the success of their online venture.
 
I am an Amazon shopper for just about everything, Chewy and my clothing sites, Overstock and Wayfair. I tried Walmart last week. I refuse to go to WM stores thought it took a few years to break the habit. Yes I saw the price in store vs online and thought well I can't be that much of a fool and over pay that much! I love being able click/compare and buy then the truck drops it off.
 
I'm not sure what Walmart is trying to do.

On Christmas day the signal converter box on my old television burned out so I decided it was time to buy a flat screen television. The next day I found the model that I wanted and checked the local stores at about 5:00am. A Walmart store about 20 miles from my home had a few of the model I was looking for listed as in stock at about half the price anywhere else. I jumped in the car at 5:30am and was at Walmart when the doors opened. I went to the electronics area and did not see the television so I asked a young man that was working in that area. He told me that it is common that the online advertisements don't sync up with the in store inventory. I was up and out so I made a stop at my local Walmart which had indicated that it did not have any televisions in the size that I wanted. I found several of another model in my size stacked up and ready to go. In the future I will just go to the store or buy online without trying to figure out the best option.
 
Wallyworld has never been accused of being zealous when it comes to ethics. I read that 1 out of every 10 products purchased is higher at the register than what is posted on the shelf. They have been sued for cheating their customers, their employees, their suppliers. In states with sales taxes, they have been accused of "taxing" non taxable goods and pocketing the money.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
Wallyworld has never been accused of being zealous when it comes to ethics. I read that 1 out of every 10 products purchased is higher at the register than what is posted on the shelf. They have been sued for cheating their customers, their employees, their suppliers. In states with sales taxes, they have been accused of "taxing" non taxable goods and pocketing the money.
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Which is why I always check my receipt before I leave the store.
 
This is all intersecting to me. I've been pondering more online shopping for convenience. I buy something occasionally from Amazon. I heard they may merge or takeover (?) Target's online business.
I still like to see what I'm buying. What I get online are things I can't get readily in the store.
On another note the last time I looked for one of those handbaskets in Wal-Mart they didn't have them. I asked an employee and he said they want you to use a cart. I asked if that was so you'd buy more and he said "yup".
 
WalMart is trying to get more on-line sales. It's one of the big reasons they finally caved and are selling on Amazon's Marketplace.

Simply put, WalMart mgmt are not on-line retailer mentality. Think of Sears, Wards, K-Mart, et. al. It is a very different distribution model. To run both brick/mortar and on-line simultaneously means you are working two competing lines of business.

Amazon's purchase of Whole Foods was in a line of business Amazon had very little success with. Wall Street is expecting Amazon to radically alter the way the grocery business works.

That's harder to do with a brick/mortar retailer; especially one with sizable overhead costs. There's currently a huge debate whether Amazon will offer for Target or not. Forbes thinks "no"; Fortune thinks "yes". I think Forbes' argument is more compelling.....but only time will tell what Bezos will do.

I don't shop at WM. Not that Bezos/Amazon are especially angels, either, of course. But the technology revolution continues, and WM is very much old-school retail. It's a dying trend - just like "super-malls" are being shut down, abandoned or repurposed.

We're Prime members, as are all my family and virtually all our friends. We seldom walk into stores any longer.
 
I placed an online order with Walmart on Monday and it arrived today. Two-day shipping for FREE. It may have growing pains, but IMO Walmart is coming up-to-speed with online shopping. Not only that, but if anything I order needs to be returned, I have the option of taking it to a Walmart store instead of boxing up to ship back.

Seems to me that there is plenty of room for competition in all retail venues. Competition is a good thing.
 
I think Walmart and Amazon are aiming at two different demographics. Amazon and its Prime service might make more sense to someone living in a dense urban apartment type environment...where they rely on public transportation primarily. Walmart, however, is the predominant retailer in more suburban and rural communities. We live in the latter, and every Walmart I go to, even in some of the larger cities and towns in this area, always has plenty of business, and the parking lot is generally quite full.

This past Christmas, we took a list of the presents for the little great grandkids, and I shopped online....Amazon, Target, and Walmart. Walmart offered a substantially better price on virtually everything. I placed one big order, for over $400, and it was all delivered to the local store, 10 miles away, in 3 days, for free. There were so many toys, that it filled up the bulk of the trunk, and half the back seat when we went to the city, for Christmas with the kids. One of the toys had a flaw, but we gave the kids Gift receipts from the store, and the granddaughter took the broken toy to her Walmart and got the toy replaced immediately.

Walmart may not be perfect...but they are heads and shoulders above most retailers, IMO. I order quite a bit online, mostly items I use/need for all my outdoor activities, or household repairs....and most of that stuff comes from specialty sellers, or EBAY...repair parts, etc., and I generally pay about half what a hardware or Big Box store like Home Depot would charge. I'm probably a bit unique in what I buy, but I have only found One item in the past 2 or 3 years that was cheaper on Amazon.
 
Don M. said:
I think Walmart and Amazon are aiming at two different demographics.
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It's more accurate to say that WM wants to be where Amazon sells.

The average Walmart shopper is a white, 51-year-old female with an annual household income of $56,482 - Kantar Retail study, Business Insider

Median household income for an Amazon shopper is $90,100, similar to Whole Foods at $95,200. Target reports its average shopper earns $87,000. These far exceed the U.S. median household income of $55,322. Source: market research firm GfK MRI
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Acquisitions bring Wal-Mart more educated and affluent shoppers
Digital Commerce 360 website | May 1, 2017

A recent analysis by Bizrate Insights of consumers shopping Walmart.com and the websites of four e-retailers it’s acquiring—and one it’s rumored to be about to buy—shows that the acquisition targets attract a significantly different kind of shopper.

The four companies Wal-Mart has acquired—Jet.com, Moosejaw, Shoebuy.com Inc. and ModCloth—along with rumored acquisition target Bonobos, sell to consumers who look different on certain demographic metrics than those that shop at Walmart.com.

For example more than two-thirds of the customers of those five retailers have a college degree versus less than half for Walmart.com, and more than 57% live in households with annual income in excess of $75,000 versus 41.5% for Walmart.com. That analysis is based on data from nearly 1,000 consumers who shopped online at Walmart.com and the other five companies’ websites in April.

There is relatively little overlap between Walmart.com and the companies it’s adding to its e-commerce portfolio. Only about one in six Jet.com shopper has shopped Walmart.com in the past six months, and the percentages are under 10% for the other four online retailers.

Acquiring these companies will bring Wal-Mart some new online business, but the bigger reason Wal-Mart is buying these online retailers is to acquire e-commerce talent, says Anderee Berengian, CEO of Cie Digital Labs, which helps retailers and brands develop technology. He says big retailers like Wal-Mart struggle to attract the top talent in Silicon Valley, and these acquisitions “are a way to get the brainiacs they couldn’t get because they wouldn’t work at Wal-Mart.”

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>>but I have only found One item in the past 2 or 3 years that was cheaper on Amazon.>>

You misunderstand Amazon's appeal. Amazon consumers do not shop for the absolutely lowest price. They shop for a REASONABLE price that saves them TIME AND EFFORT. I emphasize these words because it is critical to understanding why the retail environment is changing so drastically and quickly.

This is why malls are dying. This is why Gen Xers and Millennials care more about whether their packages are going to be stolen off their doorstep than where the nearest K-Mart or Target is.

You are very correct that Amazon is set up for the urban customer. It's where the money is, and that's why WM is trying to open more stores in big cities it formerly avoided. 80% of people in the world live in cities. This proportion is also accurate in the U.S., btw. And this proportion is forecasted to increase substantially in future years.

People go where jobs are, and rural jobs pay much less than urban jobs. It does no good to say that RE is cheaper in rural areas, when the jobs barely pay enough to cover housing and there's no health or retirement benefits given.
 
That's interesting information on demographics, Lethe200. Thanks for that.

Walmart has a long way to go before it comes anywhere close to Amazon. I like to order anything that's heavy so I don't have to lug it around. I began using Amazon when I had a broken shoulder. I discovered the wonders of having 40-pound bags of dog food delivered to my door and I never looked back. I buy vinegar in gallon jugs and include it in my Walmart order. Things like that are a big help to me.

I despise clothes-shopping because for some reason it's nearly impossible to find my size in the color I want, not to mention putting up with snotty sales people in a retail environment. I can go to one of my favored online retailers and order what I want without the hassle.

In the last month alone, Walmart has decided one of my favorite items to order online can only be sold for pickup. Okay, I ordered it elsewhere. I ordered something they had on a two-fer offer and only received one. I chatted with an agent and I now have three. I ordered some gallons of apple juice and it never arrived. Another chat and I hope I'll get it soon. Thing is, that's not convenient. They need to step up their game if they want to compete with Amazon.
 
AprilSun said:
Yesterday, I was checking prices on the Walmart site for items they would ship. Most of the items, if not all, would show the price was cheaper by shopping in the store rather than ordering. For example, there was an item that was listed as 3.48 online but also said it was 1.98 "in the store" This wasn't counting shipping. This makes me wonder if they're losing business from people shopping in the stores. I know the few times I've been lately, there wasn't many people there. How is your store doing?
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I went ahead and placed an order and I could not have asked for better service. Another reason they may be charging more online rather than in the store is, they had it packaged so good! I had 2 boxes of items and some were breakable. They had each breakable item in air pocket envelopes and still had those plastic air pockets in the extra space. Now I've ordered from Amazon many times but have never had them packaged this good! Plus, I received both boxes in 2 or 3 days and my order was exact all but one item. It was the same thing but bigger than I had ordered but that was no problem. I just guessed they were out of the size I ordered so they replaced it with a bigger size and charged me for the smaller one. I have no complaints.
 
WM's packaging is much better than it was at first, AprilSun. My first few orders were packed loose, so some canned goods arrived dented and the box another product was in was badly smashed.

My last few orders were packed well with lots of protection. Big improvement. I wouldn't say their packaging is better than Amazon but it's nearly equal.
 
Lethe200 said:
It's more accurate to say that WM wants to be where Amazon sells. The average Walmart shopper is a white, 51-year-old female with an annual household income of $56,482 - Kantar Retail study, Business Insider Median household income for an Amazon shopper is $90,100, similar to Whole Foods at $95,200. Target reports its average shopper earns $87,000. These far exceed the U.S. median household income of $55,322. Source: market research firm GfK MRI

Income levels are "subjective"...largely determined where a person chooses to live. The Cost of Living in most of the major coastal Urban areas is substantially higher than most places in the Midwest. For example, a house that might sell for a million dollars in San Francisco, would hardly be worth $200K in Kansas City. Factor in things like property taxes, income taxes, and even gasoline taxes, and it quickly becomes apparent that it can cost twice as much to live in places like San Francisco or New York City, than it does in the Midwest. It almost certainly would require $100K/yr. in such locales to live as well as someone making 50 or 60k in the Midwest.

Online shopping has Two major advantages over traditional retail...convenience and price. Unless a person needs something right away, Online is Always cheaper. At least 1/4 of the price in a traditional retail store goes towards the property, employees, utilities, etc., etc....and 1/4 is probably on the low side. Outside of things like groceries, clothing, and perhaps auto parts, I see the day coming when traditional retail is almost non-existent, and huge shopping malls are all converted into apartment complexes.
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Online shopping has been increasing for some good while. Walmart just closed or will close in the next two or three weeks, sixty-three stores Sam's Club Stores. A dozen or so of these stores will be converted to online shipping for Walmart. They have a long way to go to become competitive with the likes of Amazon but they are working in that direction. I shop at both Target and Walmart; I like to see what I am buying but as I age and getting around becomes more troublesome, online shopping becomes more attractive. I've been buying books from Amazon for a long time, I've bought a few harmonicas, and a this or a that occasionally. I've bought a few items from Walmart online. Shipment has always been prompt but they do not always have what they advertise. At the moment they are way behind Amazon. It's still a changing world.
 

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