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Walmart Buys Jet For $3 Billion, Hopes To Turbo Charge Ecommerce (venturebeat.com)
Walmart says it has agreed to acquire online retailer Jet.com for $3 billion in cash. As a promise, Jet.com says it will deliver cheaper prices on a range of goods by encouraging users to buy more items at the same time or to purchase products located in the same distribution center -- thereby cutting collection and shipping costs. ZDNet reports:Overall, it's clear that Wal-Mart has Amazon envy and needs to scale its e-commerce operations. The Jet management team has had experience battling Amazon through Quidsi and its brands such as Diapers.com. As for the deal, Wal-Mart said some of the $3 billion for Jet will be paid over time and $300 million of Wal-Mart shares will also be part of the transaction over time.
They have no warehouses, they are just a paper storefront to the cheapest seller for that particular item. You never know who is actually sending you the products. Seems way overvalued.
Drove to the local Walmart 5 miles away. I needed to pick up some stuff from Home Depot, so I was going to be in the area anyway.
Walk in. There are no obvious signs saying where to pick up Internet orders. I ask an employee (there are a lot of them near the front). He says I need to go to a counter near the back of the store.
Walk to back of the store and find what looks like the right counter. Nobody is there.
Wait 3 minutes in case the person had just stepped away for a bit. Finally decide there's really nobody there.
Spend 5 min wandering around trying to find a Walmart employee (not so many of them near the back). Finally find one. She says that's not her department, but she'll page the guy who's supposed to be there.
Wait at counter for 5 more minutes. Just as I decide the lady lied to get rid of me, two other Walmart employees walk out a door next to the counter. I ask them for help. They say the guy who works the counter is eating lunch. One of them helpfully says she'll tell him someone is waiting, and goes back in. She walks back out a minute later and says he'll be right out.
Wait 5 more minutes. Just as I'm about to go in search of another employee, the guy comes out still chewing (apparently finishing what he was eating was more important than a waiting customer). I show him my Internet purchase receipt. He walks to the back of the room and starts digging through mounds of haphazardly piled items.
After 5 minutes of searching, he finds my item, brings it to me, has me sign saying I've received it.
I walk out wishing I'd ordered on Amazon so I could have the last half hour of my life back.
I've done ship to local store at a lot of places. Staples, Office Depot, Home Depot, Lowes, Fry's (their prices for small items tend to be better than Amazon's). All of them get it right - in and out in less than 5 minutes. Not so for Walmart. If it's not on their store shelves, or they won't ship it for free or a reasonable cost, I get it elsewhere. I'm never doing a local Walmart pickup again.