Walmart.com rant
9Welcome to my rant on Walmart.com. I complained to customer service but I still don't feel satisfied so I thought I would share my gripe here. On Monday I needed to buy an electric shaver. My dog has a cyst and in order to avoid surgery I have medicate it daily, which means periodic shaving. I was just going to pop into Walmart to pick one up cheap, but it's always such a hassle so I decided to be clever and order it online for store pickup, so I could just get it at customer service. I found several other things I needed, one of which was available for pickup, the others had to be shipped. My pick up items were supposed to be ready within 4hrs. I called at the 4hr mark and they said they hadn't even gotten the order yet. Yesterday I got an email from them saying that the items weren't actually available at the store and they were maling them to the store for me to pick them up within the next 3-6 days. I emailed them back and asked them to cancel the order, as I needed the shaver immediately. They wrote back and said they would try, but it might be too late, in which case I could either drive to the store, pick up and return the items for a refund, or wait 14 days for them to give up on pick up and refund my money. Neither solution is satisfactory, this store far out of my way, I only selected it because they were supposed to have the items available. The kicker is that this morning I got two emails. One said the items I ordered for home delivery would be delivered today. The other said the items I ordered for store pickup on Monday would be delivered to the store on Friday. So I am going to get the mail order stuff two days before the stuff I was supposed to get in less than 4hrs. On the plus side, the shaver I ordered from Walmart was $25, and I picked one up last night at Walgreens for $5 ($20 - $5 in store discount and $10 coupon). Anyway, there's my rant. Feel free to dump on Walmart or rant about other stuff here.
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Walmart is the devil
I do not like Walmart! Do not like! Do not like! Do not like!
I don't shop on Walmart.com, but out of curiosity, I sometimes check their prices. Sometimes, the instore prices are higher than the price on the site. For some reason, they won't match it. They'll even have the "Order now and pick up in the store in 2 hours". I can't buy the one from the shelf for the same price. It's fucking stupid. Why?
Then at Christmas, they announced they would price match Amazon.com -- nope, they flat out refused and cited that it was because someone edited a screen shot from Amazon.com and got a PS4 for $50. Ha, that's what you get for being incompetent. Target uses their own system and price matching has to be done at the front desk, not the register -- I guess when it comes to employees, you get what you pay for.
Despite all that, we still buy most of our groceries at Walmart. They're a good place to get good deals most of the time. Just don't rely on their customer service to be competent.
@capguncowboy I was wondering if they would price match themselves. We spent the weekend in Glendale, AZ in mid-December and stopped into Walmart for road snacks. Their house brand chips were $1, and were very good. I wanted to buy some for my holiday parties, but at my local Walmart less than 500 miles away they are $2 a bag. Twice the price, really? That made them more expensive than Lays chips on the holiday sales. They are $2 a bag on the website as well. I wonder why they were so much cheaper in Phoenix? I only shop in Walmart a couple of times a year, I don't like them. But when you need a weird assortment of food and cheap non-food items, they are the only one-stop-shop in town.
@moondrake Most likely they won't because they will start talking about region pricing and all of that.
@capguncowboy @moondrake Online stores use software to change prices based on the market trends. Prices go up as more people buy...so people stop buying...prices drop...more people buy...Etc. Retailers are still trying to sort out the difference between 'online' and 'brick and mortar' shops. They want you to buy from them, but not work each against the other...and haven't figured out how to compete against other companies without also competing against themselves.
@capguncowboy Best buy has that issue on occasion too. I remember going to buy a car stereo a couple years ago and they refused to match their own online price. I ended up going over to the computer section placing an online order for pickup on a demo machine, then walking over to the pickup window to get it handed to me. Was over a $100 difference and thinking the whole time really...just really?
@capguncowboy I also aked them in-store to match their own online price. Nope. Went next door to Lowes, and they matched Walmart's online price. Took a while for them to verify same sku, but saved $10.
@capguncowboy @moondrake Yep, I've run into similar before, happened again just a few days ago. Was comparing prices for headlight, went to Wally rather than online so I could do it before the cold spell. Shelf price was several dollars more than price Wmart listed online (should have known better but didn't realize it was .com only price). Would've been better to get two bulbs for the same price shipped. I imagine maybe Walmart has some large corporate dick-wagging going on between their business units online vs. store etc etc. Idiots.
@Nikodemus Wow, I bought a camera from Best Buy a couple years ago and they matched their .com price.
@Nikodemus Similar experience with Walmart: we were out of state in a small town and needed an hdmi/display port cable. Our choices were Walmart and Radio Shack, but the best price was a name brand cable at Walmart for $15. Pop into the store and the shelf price for the same item is $30 and they can't price-match themselves. We got on the smartphone, ordered it for in-store pick-up and then followed employees around as they "picked" the cable (handed it to them); logged in the item and binned it in a secure area: and then waited for .com to register that it was ready for pickup. It took just about half an hour from order to pick-up, but we saved $15. And when Walmart emailed several days later with a request for feedback on their system I got a chance to blow off steam with a rant about customer service.
@gio I love it when I'm given the chance to provide feedback. If it's good, I am happy that I can tell them they're getting it right. When it's bad, I cross my fingers that they'll use it as a chance to improve.
Walmart? NEVER!
Happened to me too. Ordered online for in store pickup. They claimed they didn't have any and it had to be shipped to store. I couldn't wait that long for the item, so I went to the store and bought one off the shelf. When the item finally came to the store, I picked it up in back then returned it for refund in the front. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I thought their inventory system was better than that.
Amazon Prime. You're welcome.
@Headly I am pretty sure Amazon Prime doesn't offer same-day in-store pickup, which was my specific goal. And as annoying as this experience was, the stuff I ordered for home delivery took only two days to get here and shipping. was free.
@moondrake Well, yeah, but honestly if it was an emergency you'd probably pop in to pick it up. Otherwise order early in the morning on Amazon and it will arrive in a couple of days. As a bonus you can avoid the soul sucking experience of stepping foot in a WalMart. Talk about meh - they should call it the MehMart Mehcenter. WalMart has shit for customer service. And they also make lots of pricing mistakes FYI.
@phatmass I like KMart better than Walmart. But I avoid shopping in any of that type store. Costco and less frequently Sams are the only "big box" stores I shop.
@moondrake I'm not sure about where you are, but here, Kmart stores look like dollar stores that have been ransacked. The aisles are littered with merchandise, nothing is where it belongs and the staff couldn't seem to care less about it -- IF you can find anyone that works there. Kmart is pretty much dead around here, and it makes me sad that they're taking Sears with them
@phatmass Target or GTFO
@Headly I GTFO
I was working at Walmart whenever they first rolled out that stupid pick up in store thing.
Whenever there was such an order, I was usually the go-to person because for some reason I was the only worker in the store that already knew whether we had the particular item or not.
When I wasn't available, they would almost automatically tell the customer we were out of stock.
I knew about the second part because one of my co-workers tried to pull that crap on me and I just dragged them across the store and showed them the item I ordered. --and it happened on more than one occasion. :[
I've had a similar experience with Best Buy, I would order something for pickup and then they would cancel it a few hours later because they "couldn't find it in store".
I have had this same experience at Sears, Kmart, Lowes, Best Buy and Home Depot. So it's not just wally world. The synch of store inventory to online inventory must have a built in fudge factor of 15%.
@jimmyd103 Don't know if it's typical for them, but Target matched on online sale price for me in store. Had to go to customer service rather than regular checkout, but it didn't seem like it was a hassle for them.
@walarney I've had them do the same thing for me. I bought a hammock last summer and it was defective. They were able to give me one off the shelf for the same price as what I paid online.
@walarney I actually had the reverse happen several years ago with TigerDirect. They had an in-store special on a big-ticket item ($1,500 65' TV) and I called at lunchtime to make sure they still had some. The guy said they had three and I said I'd be right there to get one, could they please hold one for me for the 15 minutes it would take me to drive over there. "No problem". I arrived as some guy was loading three of them onto his truck. I went in and sure enough they were sold out. I think the guy saw murder in my eyes because he quickly switched gears and said he could get it for me online delivered to my house for the same price I'd have paid in-store. That was convenient as the TV was bigger than my car.
@moondrake Damn, I would hope a 65-foot TV is bigger than your car.
I'd rather chew my right arm off than go to Great-WAL-of-China-MART.
@hot72chev I'm curious sometimes where people shop and buy only American made products. I know Walmart sells hardgoods that are, for the most part, made in China, but so does Kmart, Target, Sears, and others. Where do you get your red, white, and blue merchandise? Doesn't it all come from China?
@capguncowboy I use this:
http://www.americansworking.com/index.html
@capguncowboy I buy a lot of stuff from Amish and Mennonite shops. Though buying it because it's American made is moreso second-thought to buying for quality.
@Keyeno That's where I get all of my electronics equipment. It's a bit pricier, but the service makes up for the added cost.
@G1 You get all your electronics from the Amish and Mennonites? That's...odd. ;)
Ugh. I hear you. I had a terrible experience at Sears/Kmart recently (ordered through Sears, delivered to Kmart). Ordered my husband a kayak for Christmas on the 4th of December. After the delivery date windows passed, I emailed customer support and they told me my order had been accidentally cancelled, but I could go online or call and re-place the order. I hadn't even got a refund yet and there was no way I would get it in time for Christmas. After calling and finally complaining on Twitter, a representative sent a reply tweet and told me to call the local store. I did and found out the kayak was there. I wasn't notified or anything. And after I picked it up, I got another apology email the next day saying my order indeed had been cancelled. Go home Sears and Kmart, you're drunk.
The K-Mart in our town just went out of business. It was a shame, because it was actually a clean one (unlike a lot of others) and carried Craftsman tools. A lot of good deals, though, when it went out.
@Duneatic Ours prominently advertises Craftsman tools on the outside of the building, but I've never seen any in there. A Walmart is (unfortunately) moving in nearby, so they won't be in business much longer.
I will not shop at Walmart. Period. They pay women less than men, hire people at part time status so that they don't have to pay for benefits and actively practice censorship.
@AnnaB Here, Walmart hires everyone at the same wage. That isn't to say that the payraises are on equal scales though. I just know that years ago, while I was a young adult, I worked there for a short stint. There were more women managers than there were men managers, and everyone was getting paid the same.
I shop at Wally world for over the counter medications. I don't have a costco card and would loose money with them. And for some prescription meds if you have to pay for them cash, they can be the best deal. It depends a lot.
http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/gotta-pee/
My pickups have always been smooth other then terrible customer service rep that gives no shits taking their sweet time 85% of time.