Slashdot Mirror
Walmart Plays Catch-Up With Amazon
HughPickens.com writes: According to James B. Stewart in the NY Times, for the past 16 years Walmart has often acted as though it hoped Amazon would just go away. When Walmart announced last week that it was significantly increasing its investment in e-commerce, it tacitly acknowledged that it had fallen far behind Amazon in the race for online customers. Now, the magnitude of the task it faces has grown exponentially as e-commerce growth continues to surge globally. "Walmart.com has been severely mismanaged," says Burt P. Flickinger III. "Walmart would go a few years and invest strategically and significantly in e-commerce, then other years it wouldn't.Meanwhile, Amazon is making moves in e-commerce that's put Walmart so far behind that it might not be able to catch up for 10 more years, if ever."
In 1999, Amazon was a fledgling company with annual revenue of $1.6 billion; Walmart's was about $138 billion. By last year, Amazon's revenue was about 54 times what it was in 1999, nearly $89 billion, almost all of it from online sales. Walmart's was about three times what it was 15 years before, almost $486 billion, and only a small fraction of that — 2.5 percent, or $12.2 billion — came from Walmart.com. Walmart's superefficient distribution system — a function of its enormous volume and geographic reach — was long the secret to Walmart's immense profitability. Ravi Jariwala, a Walmart spokesman, says that Walmart is building vast new fulfillment centers and is rapidly enhancing its delivery capabilities to take advantage of its extensive store network to provide convenient in-store pickup and adds that 70 percent of the American population lives within five miles of a Walmart store. "This is where e-commerce is headed," says Jariwala, which is to a hybrid online/in-store model. "Customers want the accessibility and immediacy of a physical store," along with the benefits of online shopping.
In 1999, Amazon was a fledgling company with annual revenue of $1.6 billion; Walmart's was about $138 billion. By last year, Amazon's revenue was about 54 times what it was in 1999, nearly $89 billion, almost all of it from online sales. Walmart's was about three times what it was 15 years before, almost $486 billion, and only a small fraction of that — 2.5 percent, or $12.2 billion — came from Walmart.com. Walmart's superefficient distribution system — a function of its enormous volume and geographic reach — was long the secret to Walmart's immense profitability. Ravi Jariwala, a Walmart spokesman, says that Walmart is building vast new fulfillment centers and is rapidly enhancing its delivery capabilities to take advantage of its extensive store network to provide convenient in-store pickup and adds that 70 percent of the American population lives within five miles of a Walmart store. "This is where e-commerce is headed," says Jariwala, which is to a hybrid online/in-store model. "Customers want the accessibility and immediacy of a physical store," along with the benefits of online shopping.
As the summary suggests, Walmart does have an advantage in its distribution network and storefront locations. At a greatly-reduced cost, Walmart could very quickly compete with Amazon for Same-Day delivery service if that proves to be lucrative.
Additionally, in the not-so-distant future, when autonomous vehicles become the norm, consumers could order online and send their own car to the Walmart distribution center to be loaded up with the groceries, etc. to reduce the cost of deliver.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Walmart believes "Customers want the accessibility and immediacy of a physical store." That is why their online business is doomed to fail. Yes, sometimes you just want it right now, but then you'll drive to Walmart or whatever local store will have it and buy it. But often you want the real online experience with unlimited selections and no hassle with trips. Why would I buy something online and then drive to pick it up?
Yes, Walmart has a huge and efficient distribution system, but can they really leverage that for online sales? When stocking stores, they ship large quantities to each store. For online sales, it's small quantities of a much larger variety. You have to support the customer who is the only one in the area buying that item just as well as you do the customer who buys the most popular item. I doubt their distribution system can adapt to that model.
Walmart can try, but in order to beat Amazon at this point, they don't just have to match them, they have to be better. I don't think they even understand what better looks like, let alone have any way of getting there.
His surname isn't his fault, but putting Roman numerals after it is.
If you're not a king or queen, that's a strong indicator you have more ego than brains.
Let's face the facts: walmart uses node.js. It's webscale. What does amazon use? Java or c++ or something like that. Not webscale! Amazon should probably just close their doors and give the money back to their investors. It is literally impossible to beat node.js. I mean, to be a java programmer, you have to go to college and shit. To be a rockstar ninja javascript programmer, all you need is a 6-week code bootcamp.
Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
NOPE!
The LAST thing I want to do is step foot in a Walmart. Even before I had a medical excuse to stay away from B&M stores, I found Walmart a most depressing experience.
If Walmart really wants to leap-frog Amazon then they can home deliver the things that Amazon can't.
Currently Walmart's raison d'ÃÂtre is being the option for cheapskates. If they can't beat Amazon on price, they are going to lose because walking to your front door is always more convenient then schlepping anywhere.
"In store pickup" is just a lame compromise that everyone else already does anyways.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Walmart can pay it's workers less then Amazon and pass part of the saving after the ceo's cut.
You don't have to pay Sales Tax on the items.
Yes, I know you are supposed to pay use taxes in most states, but seriously, who does that?
In my area, local plus state sales tax is in the upper 9.x% range....when I buy a large ticket item online, I save a substantial amount of $$. I'd have to pay that sales tax if I bought the same item on Walmart.com or picked it up in the store.
I know that someday this will come to an end, but in the meantime, I'd have to guess a LARGE number of people order from Amazon and others to avoid high sales tax in states that charge it....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
That seems especially weird since, in addition to annoying you, the copy that they wanted $30 for is the one that they've already paid to ship to a retail location and dedicate shelf space to, while the one that they'll sell you for $20 would have to be shipped specially(presumably aggregated as much as possible with any other orders set to be delivered to that store; but not a regularly scheduled delivery) and is presumably taking up cheaper warehouse space.
br. Was it a new release? The only way that seems like a sensible plan is if you suspect that enough customers are in need of instant gratification and don't have other options for getting it(eg. not yet on Netflix, hulu, ITMS, whatever).
So far my spouses and mine experience with the online pickup section of their stores is that at night the Walmart employees really hope that no one will show up and just abandon that little room of the store. The first thing that needs to happen is to have fast service at the online pickup room %100 of the time.
Not only that but usually you could select same day pick up at the store your in, wait around until you got the 'ready' email, walk to the back of the store and pick up the one you were looking at.
I did this for a carpet cleaner walmart had, 100$ less online, but they refused to sell it to me at their online price. I had to order it from my phone, select the store I was at, then wander around for 45min until I got the 'order ready' email, then walk to the back of the store and pick up the same unit I had just been looking at.
Ill never understand why B&M stores always treat their online segment as a whole other business rather than integrate properly
It's already come to an end in a bunch of states. Items sold by Amazon (not just fulfilled by Amazon) are now taxed in my state. Items sold by third parties are also taxed if that third party is in the same state as the destination.
They keep forgetting ONE BIG reason people order from Amazon.com.
You don't have to pay Sales Tax on the items.
Yes, I know you are supposed to pay use taxes in most states, but seriously, who does that?
In my area, local plus state sales tax is in the upper 9.x% range....when I buy a large ticket item online, I save a substantial amount of $$. I'd have to pay that sales tax if I bought the same item on Walmart.com or picked it up in the store.
I know that someday this will come to an end, but in the meantime, I'd have to guess a LARGE number of people order from Amazon and others to avoid high sales tax in states that charge it....
Amazon collects sales tax in most states now:
Items sold by Amazon.com LLC, or its subsidiaries, and shipped to destinations in the following states are subject to tax:
Arizona Indiana Minnesota Ohio West Virginia
California Kansas Nevada Pennsylvania Wisconsin
Connecticut Kentucky New Jersey Tennessee
Florida Maryland New York Texas
Georgia Massachusetts North Carolina Virginia
Illinois Michigan North Dakota Washington
My use of Amazon didn't go down after they started collecting sales tax -- I use Amazon for the convenience. It's still possible to avoid the sales tax collection by buying from an out of state Amazon Marketplace seller, but I've had so many bad experiences with them (obviously used products sold as new, broken product (in a box that someone wrote "Bad" on, product with missing pieces, etc) that unless at product is fulfilled by Amazon I rarely buy from a marketplace seller.
It's got to be hard to catch up to somebody who is so far behind you. You'd have to sell all the way to infinity, go back to negative infinity and then catch up to the $12 billion in sales that Amazon does.
There is a lot of "me, me, me, now, now, now" in American culture. Wal-mart will always have a place as long as people can't stand to wait two days over instant gratification.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Seriously? You know that thing you were in when you saw to $28 price? That costs actual money. You know, little things like rent, utilities, employees, shrinkage, inventory costs, etc. You know where the money to pay that comes from? From the things they sell in the store! Amazing!!
Of course, they could have the same price for in-store and online, but that means their online prices would not be competitive with Amazon, who does not have to cover the cost of having stores.
Is that really that difficult to figure out?
Like I'm going to do business with a company that is even more obnoxious and evil than Amazon.
LOL, my wife did something like this to me ... I was in a bookstore, and I was like "I want to buy this book".
She whips out her phone, looks it up on Amazon, finds it for less money, orders it, and says "it'll be delivered in two days".
I'm standing there like an idiot wondering WTF happened. Now we often check her phone while in a store.
And, yes, we've seen cases where the on-line price doesn't match the store price and they won't match.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The Walmart app tells you not only which store has it in stock, but which aisle it's on.
Btw they dropped the hyphen from their name about 15 years ago.
I needed some plastic table risers to raise a table a little. Tried Walmart.com. Website was useless regarding whether or not a local store had what I needed. I went to local WalMart. Forty-five minutes of combing the store on my own, then asking three different employees, two of which happened to be managers, they eventually showed me where the risers would be.... if they had them. Apparently, they were all out. Wasted an hour+ of my time.
Went to Amazon. Typed 'Table Riser". Clicked the one I wanted, Add to Cart, Checkout. 1 minute of my time. Showed up next day, free shipping.
I invite people to navigate to the walmart.com site and take a look. What are they trying to do there? Is it that the walmart.com team is expected to be financially self supported? I would not expect a company that is as large and successful as Walmart to be insisting on something that surely can't be bringing in much money while undercutting their future.
Amazon hasn't ever made a significant profit. What point am I trying to make? I have no idea but it's an important one!
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
They maybe should set their sites on trying to match Home Depot. They are doing the model that Walmart purports to be going after. The difference being that when I do a buy and pickup at store; it actually gets picked and is waiting for me at Home Depot, but not so at Walmart. The online and in store stock db matches on Home Depot, but not at Walmart.
I guess it comes down to; Walmart's business plan could work and be successful; however to be able to execute they have to have store managers that are competent, and that seems to be against their policy.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Walmart was built on quality, name brand merchandise at low prices. At some point the MBAs took over and decided it was better to direct source merchandise from offshore manufacturers and slap their own label on it; they also beat down the name brand suppliers to shrink packages and cut corners to lower the price. They are now seeing what happens when you chase short term profits and drive off long term customers.
You have to be biased against walmart to feel that way. It's just like any other supermarket. Maybe whole foods makes you feel better because they give you the impression that what you're eating there is healthier (spoiler: It's not. I've worked for a major food distributor and we sold them the same stuff we sold walmart when they ordered the same category of items.) The only difference is whole foods refuses to carry certain foods citing health concerns (though there's no actual scientific basis behind their ban list) and they charge you about four times as much. But if paying four times as much makes people feel better, then to each his own I say.
Anyways, two major reasons I don't buy from walmart most of the time:
- Amazon usually has better prices and the selection is much bigger.
- Walmart rather annoyingly doesn't honor their own website's prices in store. If you want their online price, you have to buy it online and then wait a few hours to pick it up in store.
That said, I could see myself springing for Walmart instead of Amazon if they did something like this:
- Greatly expand product selection
- Day after or second day after delivery of your item to the local store
- No "prime" style subscription required (I only use mine for the free shipping and nothing else, I have never really liked prime video or any of the other services.)
I don't think that brick-and-mortar retailers like Walmart will really ever get how to do online commerce.
Hell, friggin' Sears, that operated one of the most successful catalog businesses that we've ever seen, essentially closed-down their catalog service. Sears could have been what Amazon now is, and probably have been even more successful with it, as Sears has physical presence in so many markets that it would have been easy for them to adapt their distribution model to quick-turnaround shipping and home delivery. They could have offered next-day or same-day home delivery for many more products in many more markets than Amazon can based on their retail locations, and could have offered more total products out of their regional distribution facilities for more markets quicker than Amazon can.
Unfortunately they never figured out how to make an online store that didn't suck. Then they got bought by K-Mart (which took their name for itself) and started making their division compete amongst each other, and the whole thing is falling apart.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
It's really interesting that this article just came out. I just got back from Walmart where I was attempting to pickup my son's birthday gift. It took me over an hour of waiting to get it. The online system never sent me an email that it was ready for pick up, but instead said that it had already been picked up. It even gave me the option to return it. I went into the store to figure out what was happening. It hadn't been picked up, but it took them over an hour to find the item.
What more disappointing is that this wasn't an isolated incidence. Over half of the time that I have items shipped to the store, I have a similar experience. Last time it took them two hours to find my package, and that was after I had received an email asking me to go pick it up!
As I wait, I see other customers having to go through the same thing.
That's not how I'd interpret those numbers. Amazon is is burning cash (have yet to post a profit) and after 15 years they've managed to increase their online sales to $89 billion. Walmart isn't even trying and they've managed to reach $12.2 billion in online sales - 1/7th Amazon's. Furthermore, the growth of Walmart's retail sales, $486 - $138 - $12.2 = $336 billion, is nearly 4x Amazon's growth in those 15 years.
I love Amazon and I'm a long-time Prime member. But until this story I had no idea growth in retail sales was far outstripping growth in online sales. Looking up some graphs, I see now that the stories I'd been reading about how online sales were "catching up" to retail sales were based on percentage growth, not actual dollar growth. And that as a flat dollar amount, retail sales have in fact been growing far more than online sales.
Some of Amazon's strategic moves that had been head-scratchers now make sense. Like how they agreed to charge sales tax so they could establish warehouses and depots in most states. Or the crazy idea of delivery by drone. They're trying to crack into that retail market with same-day delivery.
I'm not sure having to pick up your delivery in person at a Walmart is quite the benefit Walmart thinks it is. The old joke about Target being the store for people who are willing to pay more to avoid being around Walmart customers exists for a reason.
At what point were they even close?
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
That was going to be their model. Thing is, Amazon has been building up same day service for the last 5 years. They're working on Autonomous vehicles too. Meanwhile Walmart has grocery delivery, even for 'free' at my company, but they charge a premium for all the items you buy and you don't get to pick your produce so the value isn't really there.
It's looking more and more like online will kill brick and mortar. What I'm wondering is what's going to happen to all those property owners when it does. They guys Walmart & co lease their buildings from are billionaires after all. They make their living renting out the space. All that property is set to become worthless in 20 years. 30 tops. I can't see those guys going quietly into the good night. I'm actually a bit scared. They've got crazy money and power, and their backs will be at the wall. I could see some pretty awful things coming out of that, sort of like how the health insurance biz spends a few billion dollars every time the specter of single payer comes up and we end up with a compromise that is somehow worse...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The main feature of Walmart (and Target) is that you can get stuff today and sometimes without much schlepping. Wandering around the store takes time, but you can purchase in-stock items online and pick it up from customer service later in the day. If you pass a Walmart or Target on your daily commute, you can just pop in and pick up your order quickly -- not much schlepping required. Granted, that doesn't work if the store is out of your way.
They're getting out of the "slave/subsistence wages" business model. Walmart is in the process of upping their minimum wage to $10/hr (and taking a large financial hit along the way http://www.bloomberg.com/news/... ). They've already raised it to $9/hr. Moreover, it's not like Amazon warehouse workers get treated well. In fact, some say it's worse that Walmart: http://www.salon.com/2014/02/2...
(That said, I still get a lot more stuff from Amazon than Walmart.)
What are you talking about? Amazon charges sales tax on 26 states. It's only time before they charge it in yours.
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
I have been paying sales tax on Amazon for years and years. Further it wasnt Amazon dodging taxes our lawmakers SPECIFICALLY exempted internet commerce so that it could grow.
Good-bye
Interesting, that's news to me...I've not yet lived in a state where Amazon collect sales tax.
Well, I'll keep enjoying it while I can....
Sure saved me a bunch of $$$ when I bought some high end camera gear not having to pay the unreasonably high sales tax in this area. You get up to 9.x% of things that are $2500+, it starts to add up.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
If they have a copy in the store, when you buy it online for in-store pickup, someone just wanders down the isle, grabs it, and brings it to customer service. There's not even any shipping. I agree that the system is weird, but I imagine that it works. If you're online, you're shopping around. If you're in a store, you're probably not.
You have to be biased against walmart to feel that way. It's just like any other supermarket.
I have no particular beef against Walmart but I don't like shopping in their stores for groceries. If it comes in a box they can handle it ok but fresh produce or meats? I wouldn't touch most of what they sell with a barge pole. We have a Walmart a few miles south of my house and their selection of fresh produce is pathetic to say the least and usually not very good quality either. Their meat counter is similarly useless. If I want to get Doritos and soft drinks then it's not bad but "just like any other supermarket"? Only of you are comparing it to the bad ones.
Maybe whole foods makes you feel better
Nope. I rarely shop there and while they have MUCH better produce and meat than Walmart (not exactly a high bar to clear), I don't really care if stuff is organic and the mark up at Whole Foods is pretty outrageous in a lot of cases.
- Amazon usually has better prices and the selection is much bigger.
My experience is that the prices are usually comparable but you are right that the selection at Amazon is WAY bigger. I don't really have much interest in Walmart.com because they don't provide anything I cannot get at Amazon except in rare cases.
They don't even seem to comprehend that they can leverage their brick and mortar stores along with the online presence. Walmart and Walmart.com are two separate entities. One day, we were looking for a toy for our child and found it on Walmart.com for much less money. Somewhat reluctantly, we went into a local Walmart to buy the toy except that it was significantly more IN the store. So we brought it up to customer service to ask them to match the price on Walmart.com
We were told that they don't price match against their website. We could order it on Walmart.com with the "pick up in store" option, come back an hour later, and walk out of the store with that exact toy, but they couldn't directly sell us the toy for the price on the website. The sales associate understood our frustration, said she doesn't understand it either, and said she's done the "pick up in store" workaround herself, but orders from corporate were that you don't price match against the website in the store.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I can see the future when Amazon buys FedEx or UPS (or an unknown). Sure it is all out-sourced to them - but they have all created huge distribution networks.
Walmart can become like those Delivery Only Pizza places...or dare I say.. Service Merchandise.
This is where Walmart can beat Amazon - they already have the local warehouse and future distribution center. Amazon is still building theirs.
For those who don't recall who/what Service Merchandise was - Catalog shopping. A mashup of online stores of today. You physically browsed the inventory/catalog and placed your order to pickup In-store. You didn't buy anything off the shelf - instead you placed your order at a computer and it would roll out at the front of the store for pickup, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
We've run into this too. In our case, it was for a toy whose price difference was enough to be annoying to pay, but not so much that we wanted to stick around for an hour so we could buy it for less money. The store associate who explained why Walmart doesn't match Walmart.com admitted it was stupid and that she's done the "select pick up in store, wait an hour, pick it up" trick herself. Corporate had a policy against price matching themselves, though, so she'd get in trouble if she went against it.
It's like they're still so scared of the online business that they want to keep it at arm's length. Like it's some sort of infectious disease riddled person that they're forced to deal with. You can't get rid of them so you stay as far away from them as possible. If they properly integrated Walmart.com and Walmart's physical stores, they would only increase sales, not decrease them.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
We do this all the time also. Sometimes, the stores will even price match what's online so we get the online price but the immediacy of the physical store purchase.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Ill never understand why B&M stores always treat their online segment as a whole other business rather than integrate properly
Probably because physical stores would actually need to reprice items dynamically? So unless they are a store that no longer uses price stickers on anything and have digital price displays that can update every minute, it would be difficult. (Also, I think it would annoy customers -- they wonder back to pick up the item they were looking at earlier, and now it costs $50 more!)
If you spend time monitoring prices online for a certain product, you'll see these (sometimes abrupt) price shifts. I found this out a few years ago when I was trying to buy a particular type of ladder. I had my eye on it for a couple weeks and was getting ready to buy it at Home Depot (or was it Lowe's? -- can't remember). One morning, I checked online and the price had dropped over 75%. (Yes -- you read that right -- a ladder that normally is about $200 was now selling for like $45.95 or something.)
Not considering the online problem, I jumped in the car and headed to the store, only to find that their price was of course the usual price of about $200, and of course they wouldn't honor the online price, even though they could see it on the in-store computer. I forgot to bring my phone with me, so I went back home thinking I would just order it then, but by then the price had jumped back up.
I realized what had happened -- Amazon had some weird blip happen when some 3rd-party seller dropped their price temporarily, probably to sell off one ladder or something. Amazon's system must have automatically detected this price drop and dropped their price to compete. Lowe's or Home Depot then did it too... but once Amazon's price went back up, so did everyone else's.
Don't forget, Amazon's logistics chain was built by Wal-Mart veterans.
In fact, Wal-Mart sued Amazon at one point because of that.
AFAIK, the only logistics person that didn't seem to have a logistics background is Tim Cook...although he was in charge of fulfillment for IBM's PC division at some point. I'm not sure anything in his background would have led anyone to believe that he could create a manufacturing machine like Apple's.
If you're not searching for a specific brand name of something, you will often get 87 nearly identical products (often with wildly varying ratings, chock full o'astroturfed reviews) for junk made in China.
Half the time I search on Amazon I feel like I'm just getting an iframe with the results from Alibaba.
Walmart - The Land of Cheap Plastic Crap, has NEVER been known for quality, only discounted brand name 'stuff', inexpensive nonunion part-time underpaid retail labor... but superior logistics!
There are case studies done about companies like Rubbermaid that expanded production on the basis of contracts with Walmart, only to find that the once they were beholden to this behemoth for a substantial portion or their revenue, Walmart demanded price reductions. Good business or unscrupulous abuse? That depends on what set of stockholders of constituents the story is presented to.
Walmart's distribution and logistics increased its rate of inventory turnover, and the efficiency allows for greater price competition. That's the biggest part of their success. It's not rocket science, and it sure hasn't resulted in anything good for the vast majority of its unskilled labor force.
One things that is interesting is that the buying and marketplaces are different between Amazon and Walmart. Just about anyone can sell on Amazon. Prime sellers obviously have some more hoops to jump through. Walmart has to have their buyers pick products, negotiate prices hard, etc. They have more work to do (I think) to sell you something. That has made some sellers move their products to Amazon. The other thing is that sellers don't have to run a whole eCommerce site anymore. Amazon makes it super easy to sell and for buyers to buy.
Anecdotally, I have a family of six. We have a "Super" Walmart which is the only major store in my town of 6,000 people the surrounding towns. They have groceries, the normal stuff they carry, an auto repair shop, a doctor, optometrist, two fast food places, and some other things and are open 24/7. We used to shop there all the time. If I wanted to go to Target or Best Buy or whatever I'd have to drive about 20 to 30 minutes or do it during my lunch hour (which is super inconvenient).
Now we shop almost exclusively at Amazon and we buy our groceries from Peapod. Selection and convenience are the biggest thing for me. I've moved to 90 percent or more of my purchases to Amazon (we have a family of six). Walmart either doesn't have what I need (they tend to carry lower end things here anyway) or I just don't feel like going there. Waiting two days for Amazon is fine.
BTW, Peapod is freaking awesome too because everything is just there. It saves your last order and you can just reorder, adjust quantifies or whatever, it's usually about the same price as Walmart's grocery store. Produce is great and they even deliver those 40 lb. water softener salt bags that Walmart has all the way in the back of the store even though everyone here needs them.
Chance favors the prepared mind.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
The stores are filthy, under stocked and the wait in line is twice as long (though Target is catching up in that last one :( ).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Whole Foods is better than chain grocers for reasons you snobbish people wouldn't understand.
1) There tends to be faster turnover of fruits and vegetables, which means they tend to be fresher and riper. They don't have to rely as heavily on cultivars which don't ripen well.
2) Same for meat and seafood. I don't trust butchers that don't see high volume. The lone butcher at Safeway and similar major chains spends most of his days repacking and rearranging the displays. At WH they're slinging meat from open to close.
3) Selection of fruits and vegetables is consistently more diverse.
4) Same for meat and seafood. Heck, I can get 75% prepackaged lean ground beef at WH. I can't get that at Safeway. I suppose I could ask them to grind it, but see #2 (turnover). I can get fresh livers, which the wife enjoys. At most major chains the livers they sell taste like they've been frozen for decades.
5) Many staples at WH--eggs[1], milk, chicken[2]--are _cheaper_ at WH than my working-class neighborhood chain grocers. In fact, lots of things at WH are cheaper than elsewhere. WH makes bank on their prepared meals selection, allowing them to keep prices low on some staples so they can legitimately claim it's not Whole Paycheck. That said, they make it really easy to spend alot at WH if you're not careful.
In terms of major chains, Whole Foods is _great_. But we don't buy everything there. We split our shopping between Whole Foods, Safeway or Lucky, and Costco. My preference is Whole Foods for vegetables, fruits, meats, and seafood. Safeway for dry goods--bulk grains and legumes at WH are nice but def more expensive for the basics like rice and beans, and anything boxed or from the freezer aisle at WH is usually overpriced, with the notable exception of baby foods. Costco for paper towels, bulk canned stuff, etc. Of course, we mix it up alot based on what we find. For example, I bought several pounds of bell peppers at Safeway a few weeks ago for freezing because they were in season and on sale. Though, not unexpectedly, on my next trip to WH they were even cheaper.
Some people have other choices. In the Mid-Atlantic there's Wegman's, which is pretty nice. And of course I'm sure many people have a friendly neighborhood butcher. But by-and-large it's hard to beat Whole Foods for staple perishables because their turnover means superior quality, diversity, and very often prices. Whole Foods stores are smaller and more focused. The meat, seafood, dairy, and vegetable departments are basically 1/2 to 2/3 the entire store. And the younger, more spend-thrift customers indulging on prepared foods, cheeses, wines, and niche products _subsidize_ everything else.
It's the same reason Costco's foods tends to be higher quality than at neighborhood chains--turnover combined with higher-margin products allow them to maintain quality _and_ low-prices on many staples.
[1] The cheapest large egg producer in the Bay Area, Rock Island, is $2.99 at WH but $3.99 at my local Safeway, Lucky, and everywhere else I've seen. Side note: during the egg crisis for some reason Rock Island wasn't nearly as effected--stores were usually fully stocked with Rock Island when everything else was out. Maybe they really are on an island and avoided the pandemic?
[2] Regularly on sale for $1.99/lb for whole fryers, which they'll chop. Sometimes you can just ask for the pieces you want. And they weigh the packaged pieces, not the discarded bits. By contrast, at Costco last weekend the cheapest bulk package of chicken thighs was $2.99/lb.
You can use reshippers from no-sale tax states to avoid paying your sales taxes on Amazon purchases is you like.
You can't handle the truth.
Well they did not sell any o f the unstocked items this week so the predictive ordering system did not order any. Or it sent two and both were sold so it sends another two, which will be sold immediately. I blame this system for why they get rid of items from the system. They never order enough to keep the shelves stocked, so the system thinks that they hardly sell any so it is a good item to remove from the inventory.
Sears does the same thing. I've had that happen when trying to buy stuff at the Sears Outlet stores, and what's further aggravating is that they know the quantities on-hand in the stores on the website.
I don't buy from Sears anymore. I can buy my tools on used market and if anything Craftsman breaks I will get it exchanged, but from now on it'll cost Sears money any time I walk in, rather than make them money.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
yea but the dumb shit thing is you can order it right there on your phone, do your groceries and when your done some yutz walked over, grabbed it off the shelf and sent you an email, where you just pick it up
its the exact same box and everything you just had your hands on but NOW you just got it CHEAPER wile still taking up rent utilities and even MORE employees time
its fucking dumb
That'll apply to fewer and fewer people as Amazon builds out its physical presence. Wherever they have facilities of some sort (server farm, warehouse, etc.), they collect sales tax. I live in Nevada, and pay sales tax on Amazon purchases because they have a warehouse up north.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
You have to be biased against walmart to feel that way. It's just like any other supermarket. Maybe whole foods makes you feel better because they give you the impression that what you're eating there is healthier (spoiler: It's not. I've worked for a major food distributor and we sold them the same stuff we sold walmart when they ordered the same category of items.) The only difference is whole foods refuses to carry certain foods citing health concerns (though there's no actual scientific basis behind their ban list) ...
Dude, I don't know what you smoked or Kool-Aid you drank at the company you worked at, but Walmart's produce and meats look like they came from Whole Food's dumpsters.
They are also a parasitic company that moves into an area, lowers their prices to drive other retailers out of business, and then raises their prices once they have established a monopoly.
Some people place their morals above their bottom line, and that is why they are biased against Walmart.