Walmart Grocery is now offering a $98 per year ‘Delivery Unlimited’ subscription

https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/14/walmart-grocery-is-now-offering-a-98-per-year-delivery-unlimited-subscription/

by prostoalex • 7 years ago

87 121 7 years ago

josep2• 7 years ago

We have a subscription (For about 3 months) and it's been a great value for us. We order things like bread, some staples for our 2-year-old and some other packaged goods for about $40 a week. Walmart uses DoorDash for delivery in our area and we can usually place an order and have it delivered 2-3 hours later.

One negative aspect of using the service is Walmart seems to have a hard time knowing what will be in stock even a few hours from order. Every order we've done (around 12) has had a missing item due to it being out of stock.

toomuchtodo• 7 years ago

We had the same issue with Walmart pickup, and switched to Target pickup instead. Substitution/stock issues disappeared, and we found Target pickup to be more frictionless.

paulie_a• 7 years ago

Walmart has always had problems for online purchases. Ship to store is a really half assed service.

arkades• 7 years ago

What's the produce selection and quality like?

I tried Prime Now, Peapod, and Freshdirect so far. FD is the most reliably good, but there's no same-day delivery, and it's the most expensive. Peapod also has no same-day, often misses items, and isn't That much cheaper.

Prime Now has the same-day, but so far, on three occasions, they've delivered subpar produce I'd never have picked myself, super stale bread, and damaged-during-delivery produce, for only slightly less than the cost of freshdirect. I like same-day delivery of goods, but not same-day delivery of bads.

keanebean86• 7 years ago

I worked at 3 walmarts in 2 states over about 7 years. They all had issues with inventory.

Corporate has been trying to fix the issue for years with different technology. They bought into RFID tech pretty heavily but it didn't really work as advertised. It seems the plan was to interrogate tags as they come off the truck since they had readers on both sides of the loading dock. Even with my limited experience with RFIDs I can see that not working. Passive RFIDs are only reliable when you have line of sight. Active and semi-passive tags work far better but they're way more expensive. When unloading the truck you need to deal with box orientation, un-loader's watery bodies, and equipment. Now the readers look abandoned and in disrepair.

Later they re-purposed the Layaway system to assign cases/items to locations in the back room. It was an amazing idea but it's fundamentally flawed in a few ways.

  1. Adding and removing items is too slow and unreliable. The portable terminals lose connection or take seconds to process scans. Those seconds add up when scanning hundreds of boxes. 
  2. Each item/case requires a label that takes time to print
  3. Large quantities of unsold special items can fill precious backroom space. This requires hunting for holes to add new, normal items. 
  4. Lack of time results in corners being cut. Items are not scanned or they fall behind stacks of other boxes and are lost.

Add in theft and items being left in the wrong place by customers and it's not hard to have a seriously messed up inventory.

What I would like to see is a store where all merchandise is kept in the stockroom. Customers scan bar-codes on the shelf or on displays. A team in the back picks the items from inventory and meets the customer at the door after payment is made. Of course that would require a major change to story layouts, staffing, and customer expectations so I doubt it will ever happen.

Edit: spelling errors

gonesilent• 7 years ago

Sears had a line of stores back in the early 90's like that. Everything in the store was a display and you took around a little clipboard. Name escapes me, maybe just a so-cal thing.

DrScump2• 7 years ago

Walmart was an early adopter of handheld on RF networks clear back to the early 1990s. I worked on integrating support for our database/4GL apps with Telxon and Symbol RF network devices (including portables and wearables) then.

wincy• 7 years ago

I live right down the street from Walmart so we wouldn’t get this, but using the Walmart Grocery app and picking up our order has been great. About six months ago a recruiter asked me if I was interested in moving to Bentonville. It’s been interesting to watch the app improve since then, they’re really putting a push on making it work well. It’s great because this has made us buy smaller orders so we waste less food, whereas before we’d make a semiweekly Costco run and most things would spoil.

opportune2• 7 years ago

That's interesting, I figure all of Walmart Labs was located in San Bruno. Or was this a non-tech position? If the pay is comparable to San Bruno and you can tolerate living in... Arkansas... I bet that money would go pretty far

maxxxxx2• 7 years ago

What I have seen of arkansas was actually pretty nice.

bashook• 7 years ago

I work in Bentonville for Walmart Labs. Glassdoor salaries are probably accurate for Software Engineers if that’s what interests you. I grew up in the area so family is my primary driver in location at the moment. If you like a more rural setting with an interesting art/culture vibe it can be a fantastic place.

reaperducer7• 7 years ago

you can tolerate living in... Arkansas

Based on the downvotes you're getting, I suspect there are plenty of HN'ers who would rather have a good life in Arkansas than tolerate living in San Bruno.

blhack• 7 years ago

Retailers are chasing amazon on variety, and delivery, but I actually think the next evolution is curation.

The loyalty my wife and I have to Costco (which, btw also has an incredibly cheap deliver option which is NOT a subscription) is pretty incredible. It’s gotten to the point where we trust the things they’re selling just by virtue of the fact that Costco sells them.

Amazon, Walmart, etc all seems to be sprinting as fast as they can in the other direction. Their online stores for instance, feature an enormous variety of products, most of which aren’t actually in stock at the storefronts, which are a crapshoot of quality.

I personally hope the future of retail looks a lot more like Costco than amazon and wal Mart.

ars2• 7 years ago

but I actually think the next evolution is curation.

Curation has value, but not here. I shop walmart because they have everything. Costco has a far more limited shopping list, because there's tons of stuff they just don't have.

Same for Aldi and Trader Joes, they are great for what they have, but it's not enough for my complete grocery needs.

nitrogen• 7 years ago

Maybe "curation" isn't quite the right word, but filtering and QC are valuable. If I walk into Walmart I'm much less likely to find counterfeits on the shelves vs. buying online from Amazon, and most products will be generally fit for purpose. As an example I have purchased tie-down straps (not for heavy weight use) on both Amazon and Walmart. The Amazon straps were dyed with some harsh, non-color-fast chemical that smelled terrible and left a nasty black film on everything. The Walmart straps were cheaper, didn't smell bad, and didn't leave residue behind.

It used to be that Amazon was safe to buy most things from. But now, even if I'm getting something cheap, by going to a physical retail store I have some kind of quality floor for what they put on the shelves.

----

Since you're talking about groceries, I've also found Walmart in my small hometown has a significantly better produce variety and quality than any Target I've seen in any big city, nearly rivaling that of e.g. Whole Foods (and sometimes surpassing simply because there's a lot more space available).

MiddleEndian3• 7 years ago

Trader Joe's

For me it's the opposite. Trader Joe's has reliable staples. When I try to buy something like bacon at Whole Foods (now owned by Amazon) and I have to make sure I'm not getting something unexpected like uncured or unsmoked bacon and that's a waste of energy. When I buy stuff at Trader Joe's it's always been reliably tasty.

maxerickson• 7 years ago

Walmart anyway does more curation than most discount retailers. Buy some Walmart store brand re-closable plastic bags and they will at least work without being frustrating or constantly tearing. Buy the cheapest option at some other cheap store and you are rolling the dice.

They sell lots of stuff that is on the cheap side of the price-quality trade off, don't get me wrong, I just think they've learned to take a step back when they need to.

hyperbovine• 7 years ago

The name of the game is warping your grocery needs to whatever TJ's sells. My wife is a very very good cook (I'm no slouch but she is amazing), and we eat incredibly well off a combination of Trader Joe's, Costco, and the veggie box. It's gotten to the point where most of our recipes are denominated in terms of what these places sells. Lasagna? That's 2 28 oz. cans of Marinera Toscano sauce, 1 bag shredded mozz., 1 bag shredded quattro formaggio, 1 ricotta, 1 frozen spinach, etc. (All TJ's items).

Funny enough, I just went to Aldi today for the first time, trying to figure out how it fits into the rotation.

maxxxxx2• 7 years ago

I guess there is a place for both. But for non curated stores I find eBay more pleasant than Amazon by now.

vatys• 7 years ago

I agree, though I might put it the other way: Amazon is less pleasant than eBay.

I've stopped using Amazon entirely, and I now get things on eBay I never thought I would back when it first started and was "the flea market of the internet"

wil421• 7 years ago

The meat at Costco is questionable and the chicken is way too big. Everything else I like except some products have way too many pumpkin seeds.

I wonder if the Zip lock bags, plastic warp, and things like aluminum foil are different than grocery stores. Warehouse quality.

Retric• 7 years ago

Each store makes a tradeoff in selection vs quality control. In terms of random object quality I would say it’s Amazon < Walmart < Costco. And things reverse when you look at selection.

I am flat out never going to consume anything ordered from Amazon ever. However, if I want something random like a sleeping pig statue, and I don’t really care if it’s toxic, it’s a reasonable option.

tcbawo• 7 years ago

Costco is one of the few places you will see prime grade meat these days outside of a butcher shop or restaurant.

DannyBee5• 7 years ago

Costco consistently has some of the best meat around.

In fact, outside of a butcher, I have never seen better meat. The vast majority of grocery store meat is plain garbage with fancy names to try to hide that it is garbage.

jimmaswell3• 7 years ago

This website is the only place I ever hear complaints about supposed counterfeits or excessive low quality products on Amazon. I feel like it's not as much of a real issue as it's made out to be, especially to the average person. Personally I still use Amazon regularly and have no real complaints.

meowface• 7 years ago

I use Amazon frequently and haven't been aware of any quality issues with anything I've purchased (though who knows for sure what their quality is), but there's definitely been an uptick in sketchy looking product alternatives made by unknown pop-up companies when you search for electronics and such. It kind of feels like viewing a modern Google search results page, where at least half the items are the equivalent of search engine-gaming blogspam. It wouldn't shock me if a lot of safety issues and hazardous materials are waiting to be uncovered in a lot of those products.

DannyBee5• 7 years ago

Eh. I use Amazon fresh and the produce quality used to be good but it's now fairly hit or miss (I'm sticking with in season items only). This isn't crazy stuff. Im talking about bananas, strawberries, etc

By comparison, if I instacart it from Costco, I've found it to be still consistently good.

cheschire• 7 years ago

Your comment doesn’t need make me trust amazon more, but it definitely makes me trust HN more.

dazc• 7 years ago

I also have experienced no problems with counterfeits but, because it's flagged up here so often, I have become ultra cautious. Anything with a potential for harm, I buy elsewhere now.

Interestingly though, for some stuff, the problem isn't counterfeits it's the incremental degradation of quality of some 'premium' products. Almost all footwear brands, for example, are guilty of this. In some cases, the cheap knock-offs being better than the real thing.

NotSammyHagar2• 7 years ago

I have seen multiple low quality or counterfeit batteries from amazon. I gave up on buying them there. lithium batteries for my house were extremely poor (lasting a month instead of years), aaa and cr32 batteries were also poor. I have noticed headphones being incredibly crappy also, unlike their reviews. It's really got me to the point I'm afraid to buy stuff from there. I still do, it's so convenient. I feel more comfortable buying clothes if they are us retailers (but the storefronts lie). Why doesn't amazon try to fix this?

llao• 7 years ago

Does topical discussion of Amazon come up at other places you frequent? If not, this makes sense.

lozenge• 7 years ago

Have you forgotten the eclipse sunglasses fiasco? It made national news.

pjc502• 7 years ago

Are there HN complaints about Amazon quality/counterfeiting in Europe, or is this a US poor consumer law problem?

leereeves• 7 years ago

Even Jeff Bezos' own newspaper, the Washington Post, recently acknowledged the "scourge of fake goods" on Amazon.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/02/28/amazon-mo...

Kihashi• 7 years ago

FWIW, Amazon seems to scrub reviews about counterfeits once they become aware of them. I got a counterfeit item and when I complained about it, I linked to a review that showed exactly the differences between a real and a counterfeit version. After Amazon sent me a replacement (which was also a counterfeit, despite assuring me it would not be), that review was nowhere to be found. There were dozens of other reviews talking about fakes on that item. I did not initially read them because I was replacing one I lost.

I've been an amazon customer for more than 10 years. I buy from them a lot. I will still buy from them. It doesn't mean it's not a problem.

reaperducer7• 7 years ago

Costco (which, btw also has an incredibly cheap deliver option which is NOT a subscription)

Don't you have to subscribe to Costco in the first place? Or is Costco letting just anyone shop there now? It's been a lot of years since I let my Costco subscription ("membership") lapse.

jedieaston• 7 years ago

You require a membership, ad then you can use Costco.com.

kradroy• 7 years ago

Purchasing items on Costco.com for delivery, at least in the Bay Area, incurs a premium of about 20% on many (all?) items. This is to ensure the Instacart delivery people are paid fairly. On top of that there's the tipping that is always implied for service work. So it's not incredibly cheap in SF. It's cheaper for me to go there and take a Lyft home if I spend more than $100.

Regardless I agree with your hope that retail looks more like Costco than Amazon.

homero• 7 years ago

It's true. I've been buying from places like Target and best buy that don't have third parties because i have a better chance at getting genuine products and less search results. But even Target is adding a marketplace.

thirdsun• 7 years ago

Exactly. Whenever I have to shop for simple, mundane everyday items that aren't covered in extensive reviews it's incredibly hard to find good products. AmazonBasics is a brand I trust to at least offer decent quality, and sometimes exceptional value. However if AmazonBasics doesn't have the particular product category you're looking for covered, you're basically drowning in a sea of mediocre, barely distinguishable search results that might as well come straight from Alibaba or eBay.

Particularly since those are the kind of products you can hardly research due to lack of reviews, which aren't paid affiliate promotions, I think storefronts like Amazon should step up, curate and limit their selection to worthwhile products.

gabea• 7 years ago

Same. Costco doesn’t get much press on how trusted they are imho. It’s fun to shop there and see what new things they are bringing in as well as to keep getting the goods that you need regularly. Their web experience is interesting is that I rarely see free shipping to home or even store.

Balgair• 7 years ago

Little FYI to other HNers out there: You do not need a membership to buy alcohol at Costco.

Also, Costco liquors are high quality relative to their prices.

Dylan16807• 7 years ago

But does this service give you the exact same prices you get in the store, including sales and coupons? Because that often seems to be a hidden cost.

ApolloFortyNine• 7 years ago

I'm wondering the same here, as instacart gives different prices online (usually not by much, but it adds up over an entire order of course).

reaperducer7• 7 years ago

Good question. The reason I don't use the Kroger or Safeway online services is because the prices are severely marked up compared to my local stores.

And I don't use Target's online shopping because it's freaking useless. Sandwich bread? Sorry, not available for pick-up in the stores near me. Sugar? Same story. Flour? Nope. What's the point of all those signs in Target's grocery section telling me I can order my food online?

I miss Peapod. :(

ars2• 7 years ago

I used to order from Walmart a lot, and then they raised prices online vs. in the store.

Now I don't trust them, and hardly shop their website. Their store is far enough away that I only go monthly or less.

They need to regain my trust and have the same prices online and in the store, or at least make it visible so I can decide if the "shipping" fee is worth it to me.

robertAngst2• 7 years ago

What items did it seem like they raised it?

mlacks• 7 years ago

I just want to comment that Wal-Mart isn’t “playing catch-up” to Amazon, but simply plugging up holes in their business plan.

Critics of Wal-Mart’s online competency seem to forget that not only is Wal-Mart the largest company by revenue - on the planet - but Amazon doesn’t even crack the top 20.

As far a business goes - an organization to provide value exchange - they are doing better than almost any other business in the world, depending on the metric you’re measuring with.

[0] http://fortune.com/global500/

oblib2• 7 years ago

Wal-Mart is not the same as it was 20 years ago. They didn't do "groceries" back then and they tended to source some products from local businesses when possible. They had a local feel and devoted customer base. Not so much now though.

The "Super Wal-Mart" we have now is pretty boring, makes you walk across that entire giant store to get a quart of oil and a bag of chips, and then lets you choose between "Self-Checkout" or a really long line at the one or two cash registers they have open.

In places where an Aldi's has opened up they've put a serious dent in those Super Wal-Marts, and Costco just blows them away. Wal-Mart will have to do a lot more very soon to maintain same store sales numbers as those two competitors fill in the gaps.

jdsully2• 7 years ago

In mine they replaced the friendly greeters with stone faced security guards. The self checkouts also remind you that they're watching your every move with a dialog you must accept before paying.

pythonaut_16• 7 years ago

Your second point is pretty disingenuous. Of course you have to walk across the entire store to get a quart of oil and a bag of chips. It's literally impossible to carry a variety of items in inventory without some items, mostly unrelated, being located far apart.

reaperducer7• 7 years ago

A lot of people forget that Wal-Mart and Sam's Club used to be the place to go to for Made in the USA stuff. They had an entire ad campaign about it, and American flags all over everything.

This was back when NAFTA was new and there was a lot of teeth-gnashing about factories just on the other side of the Mexican border taking American jobs†. Now China's factories have done to Mexico what Mexico did to American factories. (And IME, Africa is going to do to China what China did to Mexico.)

† https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maquiladora

endorphone• 7 years ago

Clearly they are playing catch-up -- Amazon is eating them alive through online ordering, and has a growth curve that is rightly extremely frightening for Walmart. Walmart is already operating by the skin of its teeth (a net margin pushing below 1%, while Amazon's has pushed past 4% and has been heading upwards) and Amazon threatens that more as people buy more and more of those "oh right" things through the online retailer.

Culturally, though, Walmart has absolutely no chance. I recently purchased my first online order through Walmart as they had a product no one else in the country had. It came busted and spilled out in the bag. I emailed just to make them aware that this happened and the hostile, "PROVE IT" type response I got was so incredible compared to Amazon's facilitation of the customer. Walmart culturally will never have a "oh you didn't like it that's fine just stuff it in a box here's a label and a we've issued a full refund" response to anything.

reaperducer7• 7 years ago

I emailed just to make them aware that this happened and the hostile, "PROVE IT" type response I got was so incredible compared to Amazon's facilitation of the customer.

Wow. That's entirely the opposite experience I've had.

Twice I've had problems with my Wal-Mart orders. Both times I filled out a form online, and within an hour someone very nice from Texas (both times — I inquired about their accents) called me on the phone to not only apologize, but to replace the item at no charge and refund the price of my original purchase.

Amazon also gives exemplary customer service when things go wrong, but your Wal-Mart experience seems really out of left field.

(I had an entire Easter dinner from Whole Foods sent to someone else's house and Amazon had another delivery at my door in a little over an hour, with a $20 credit. Interestingly, Amazon won't tell you which house an order was accidentally delivered to for privacy reasons, or I just would have knocked on a neighbor's door.)

mastry• 7 years ago

In my experience, Amazon is no better in the customer service department. I recently ordered some unscented deodorant from Amazon and they sent me some horrible smelling "Sport" scent. Fine, mistakes happen, but when I went to return it the item was marked as "not returnable". No other options. So they basically stole $17 from me and there's nothing I can do short of filing in small claims court. It was a very Google-esque experience.

reaperducer7• 7 years ago

I just want to comment that Wal-Mart isn’t “playing catch-up” to Amazon

Thanks for that thought. It made me look at the whole Amazon/Wal-Mart thing the other way around.

With all of Amazon's new standalone bookstores and miniature grocery stores, it can be seen that Amazon is playing catching up to Wal-Mart.

Honestly, I'm OK with both. Amazon for things like underpants, cat litter, and other stuff that isn't likely to be counterfeit. Wal-Mart for things that matter, like food, HABA, and the occasional last-minute flash card.

whamlastxmas• 7 years ago

Oddly underwear is massively counterfeit on Amazon, to the point I have to buy mine direct form manufacturer

sumedh• 7 years ago

not only is Wal-Mart the largest company by revenue - on the planet - but Amazon doesn’t even crack the top 20.

Nokia and RIM were the biggest players in phone market in terms of revenue once, just because you are leader now does not mean you will be a leader in the future.

nkurz• 7 years ago

Here's a map of locations where Walmart offers grocery delivery: https://grocery.walmart.com/locations/delivery/

And where they offer online ordering and free pickup: https://grocery.walmart.com/locations/pickup/

mlevental• 7 years ago

how do you figure out the radius of delivery?

reaperducer7• 7 years ago

You can punch in your ZIP code and it will let you know what stores deliver to you. I did this a couple of weeks ago and found out I'm not in any Wal-Mart zone.

But the Whole Foods that's farther away? Amazon's on it like Oprah on a baked ham.

dawnerd3• 7 years ago

My area has delivery but the Unlimited landing page just redirects back to the grocery site. They want 9.95 per delivery.

weq• 7 years ago

Is anyone else worried about this race to the bottom? What the price our earth is paying for these services? And our communities? We talk about getting a fair go, yet actively idolise big-tech which is obliterating the low income jobs and widing the class divide with marketing tactics.

The only thing i hear people talking about in this thread is _their_ bottom line. Not a single person considering the social and evironmental implications of their choices?

Seems like tech is creating a bigger disconnect between reality and everyday lives. The corner shop run by a local family has morphed into some sick youtube family dream where toddlers unwrap consumables and hundreds of thousands of people become envious, pickup their phone, click some buttons, and are soon greated by a person at the door delivering them a token that makes them feel more apart of society.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle

jimmaswell3• 7 years ago

Either you drive to Wal Mart and pick the stuff up, or an employee delivers them to you, potentially making multiple deliveries in the same trip. Replacing pickup with delivery is carbon neutral at worst, assuming your vehicles are equally efficient. Likely the delivery vehicle was chosen for efficiency so it's better anyway.

megaremote• 7 years ago

These are not the only two options.

rgbrenner5• 7 years ago

Amazon has setup their business to compete against Walmart... that's the low-margin retail market. Low margin because they've both chosen low prices as their usp. Along with low margin comes all of the things we associate with both retailers: poor wages, poor working conditions, etc.

At no point was Costco a direct Walmart competitor.. when they were founded, their innovation was creating the first retail warehouse club.

Amazon and Walmart look so similar because they fully intend to compete with each other. Costco is just a different concept, and really an entirely different way to run a business than walmart and amazon. Considering both have exceeded Costco's revenues, it's very unlikely they would alter course to compete against the smaller Costco (although I also doubt they could make such a huge shift in strategy).

dannyw• 7 years ago

There are places for both.

For variety you go for Amazon or Walmart. For simplicity and confidence, Costco.

pnutjam• 7 years ago

Sam's club offers a similar curated experience.

rgbrenner5• 7 years ago

ok weird.. came back to this post.. and they separated from the post I replied to.

To be clear, this is a reply to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20198779

I think if HN is going to separate my reply from its parent, they should explain why. This reply makes more sense with context.

root_axis3• 7 years ago

It's also possible you just made a mistake.

robertAngst2• 7 years ago

I am close to the phase where fast food is slower than homecooked food.

Between Ramen and Breakfast Burritos, I can cook faster than a drive to Taco Bell.

I cannot see how groceries can be further optimized. More selection?

AuthorizedCust2• 7 years ago

Unless they eliminate the expectation to tip, there's still a significant per-delivery fee.

AuthorizedCust2• 7 years ago

This is scammy. Walmart allows delivery drivers to collect tips, which means that $98/year is only an arbitrary portion of the cost of this service. Eliminate the tip to give me transparent pricing, and you may win me over.

J_cst• 7 years ago

Just yesterday I realized that also in my small city (in Italy, about 100k people on East coast) it's available an online service by which you can order your groceries online on a number of local stores and get it delivered at your home/office on a specific time for 5eur. For 2 of those n local stores you are "guaranteed' to pay the same prices as in store. They also offer a subscription service for 10eur/ month which allows you unlimited deliveries for any purchase whose value is greater than 30eur. The deliveries are taken care by "shoppers". One can become a "shopper" by signing up on their website. No mention of stores fidelity cards on their website. I have not yet tried it, but sounds convenient.

educationdata• 7 years ago

I enjoy the time walking inside the Grocery store (my neighborhood Walmart), looking around and picking stuff. I feel it's part of good life. Am I an outlier?

jdhn• 7 years ago

I don't mind it, the biggest issue for me is finding parking as I always seem to hit crowds of people whenever I go. I also like the idea of going around and picking out specific fresh produce. I like looking at the apples and bananas before I put them into my cart, as I trust my own QC over somebody elses.

knowaveragejoe• 7 years ago

There's something really soothing to me about shopping for groceries later in the evening, say after 9 or so. I can't quite put my finger on it.

Tempest1981• 7 years ago

I needed a pair of Lithium AA batteries. I saw them in stock at Walmart.com (available for pickup today), so instead, I dropped by the store to grab them.

I checked all of the battery displays, but couldn't find them. (I found Lithium AAA.) So I ordered them online.

The next day, I got an email: "pickup order delayed, don't go to the store yet." A few days later, same thing. A few days later, "our apologies, your order has been canceled".

I've had this issue 2 out of 5 times. Not great inventory control.

weiming• 7 years ago

Roughly mirrors my experience trying online ordering from Safeway. Figured they haven't yet automated processes in the way Amazon has.

Tsubasachan• 7 years ago

In a country were you're never more than 1500 metres away from a supermarket I always find grocery delivery extremely lazy. Retail will die and I won't shed a tear but we don't need everything delivered...

lammalamma25• 7 years ago

To each their own. Grocery delivery gives me 1-1.5 hours back on my weekend that I value quite a bit. Maybe not $10 a delivery but quite a bit.

npip99• 7 years ago

Why is giving a "Delivery Unlimited" option considered to by "Taking on Target Shipt, Amazon Prime, etc"? It's just a reorganization of what you pay, since you're going to pay for those shipping costs one way or another. And it's going to be through increased prices of the items in their store. They didn't actually do anything at all. How do people fall for this?

totaldude87• 7 years ago

The main problem i have with online grocery is this.

If i want some mushroom , pretty sure ill spend 15 seconds to pick up the "fresh looking" one, while in online delivery someone gets to pick that out and its a coin flip on whether it would be fresh looking or not.

Also, wouldn't the grocers want to clear out the first expiring products first (milk, spinach etc etc) than give out fresh ones .. How can we be sure on whats being delivered to us is fresh looking at least?

Note : I've been pressing up the notion of "Fresh looking " vs "Fresh produce" as I mainly buy with how it looks to my eyes and i have no idea how to validate if a vegetable is actually fresh..

Walmart Grocery is now offering a $98 per year ‘Delivery Unlimited’ subscription

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