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Walmart Is Raising Prices Online To Increase In-Store Traffic (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Walmart is taking a bit of an nontraditional approach to boost sales ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping events by raising prices for products sold online and discounting those same items in physical retail stores. According to The Wall Street Journal, the big-box store has quietly raised prices for household and food items such as toothbrushes, macaroni and cheese, and dog food on its website while the prices in stores remained the same. If there are price discrepancies between online and in-store purchases, Walmart will now highlight this on the product's web listing to encourage customers to buy them from their local stores. It's all part of an effort to increase foot traffic as Walmart continues to compete with Amazon just about everywhere else.
With the new pricing strategy, a twin-pack of Betty Crocker Hamburger Helper costs $3.30 on Walmart.com, but goes as low as $2.50 if purchased at a store in Illinois. The aim is to also help reduce processing costs and increase online sales margins, since driving customers to stores means less shipping costs for the retailer. Shipping one box of instant macaroni and cheese from Chicago to Atlanta could cost Walmart as much as $10, reports the WSJ.
With the new pricing strategy, a twin-pack of Betty Crocker Hamburger Helper costs $3.30 on Walmart.com, but goes as low as $2.50 if purchased at a store in Illinois. The aim is to also help reduce processing costs and increase online sales margins, since driving customers to stores means less shipping costs for the retailer. Shipping one box of instant macaroni and cheese from Chicago to Atlanta could cost Walmart as much as $10, reports the WSJ.
Letâ(TM)s say Jimmy is shopping on Walmartâ(TM)s website. Heâ(TM)s shopping there because he doesnâ(TM)t want to go to a brink-n-mortar. He sees the price difference and thinks to himself âoeDang! Itâ(TM)s almost $1.00 cheaper in the store. I wonder what Amazonâ(TM)s price would be? Wow. Amazon is .50 cents cheaper online, and plus I wonâ(TM)t have to go to the store. Iâ(TM)ll just order from Amazon.â
Walmart is absolutely clueless.
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They should consider volume discounts on purchase of multiples or not bother offering low margin products in single quantities online. It seems a bit unreasonable to expect free shipping on a box of macaroni and cheese across the country.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
And the thing that stops a person from just going to another website with a likely-lower price is...?
I even RTFA (okay, skimmed) to see if there was an answer to this question. I honestly don't know why someone would feel compelled to actually drive to a store (Wal-mart or otherwise) to purchase an item that they already intended to purchase online, especially since it's likely there are other retailers who will have lower prices after Wal-mart increases theirs. (The referenced WSJ article is paywalled so I can't look there for answers, either.)
And from TFA:
...so charge $10 to ship it? I realize things like Amazon Prime have made a lot of people expect cheap or free shipping, but that's an aberration, not a requirement, of online shopping.
I buy $500 TVs, $300 DVD players, $199 PS4 consoles, etc. For $0.49 I'm perfectly happy in Vons.
Delivery isn't free. If it's "free", then you're being overcharged if you go and buy it in person.
Yes, retail infrastructure costs money to maintain, but so does shipping/warehousing/IT infrastructure.
Walmart's website is one big clusterfuck of design. They need to learn from other sites how to do it. Lowe's online site is a great example. Not only can I tell if an item is available at my local store, they actually give me a map of the local store and tell me exactly where to find what I'm looking for. And every time I go to the site it knows which local store I live near.
I think the reason Walmart can't do that is because they're constantly moving stuff around in their stores. In fact, if it's been a few weeks since my last visit, I have trouble finding what I knew was there before.
Shopping at walmart.com is a headache. Searching for an item is just about impossible. Once you find it you still don't know if it's available locally or online because the site forgets where you're shopping!
Every year we hear the story of the Black Friday Brawl. Every year, it's in the same GD place.
Walmart.
"Free can of Pepper Spray for the first 150 shoppers ! "
I think I'll pass on the in store only sales and just shop somewhere else.
Shipping one box of instant macaroni and cheese from Chicago to Atlanta could cost Walmart as much as $10, reports the WSJ.
From what I've read, Walmart has one of the most efficient shipping infrastructures, so I don't think they'd be that dumb. They would probably ship from someplace local/closer to Atlanta and, therefore, much less expensively.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
A friend ran into that the other day and bought an item she thought was from Walmart, but was actually from a 3rd party vendor. I am unsure if it showed up at her door or was picked up in-store, but she didn't find out until she tried to return it instore that it was 3rd party, and then was told she had to email the 3rd party about any return issues rather than Walmart.
Having looked on Walmart.com in the past and run across items like that, which on first glance appear to be from Walmart, until you skim pretty much the whole page, I can understand how more sheep-like consumers have that problem.
Amazon and Newegg both do a better job on this (Amazon more than Newegg in my experience.) But this seems to be a disturbing trend as more of these 800 lb gorillas try to push their way into being the central hub of internet sales, without taking responsible disclosure and clear separation of 1st and 3rd party items seriously, while then blaming it on the customer when they can't tell the difference. Buyer beware is true, but so is 'don't pull the rug out under your customers.' Changing from a 1st party only site to supporting 3rd party vendors without clearly dilineating the difference is just asking for customer dissatisfaction.
Every single time i go walmart it's a painful experience. The last time I was there, i brought 4 items up to the self check out and, literally, just as I got there, some 300# woman with a mullet waddles off a stool, flips a switch turning off all the self checkouts. not a word, just a glance, then she spun around and limped off towards customer service.
I left the items on the deactivated conveyor belt and left. Sadly, experiences like this have happened multiple times at various locations
i will absolutely positively pay more to avoid Walmart.
I'm wondering why the Wall Street Journal thinks that walmart would need to ship individual boxes of mac and cheese over 700 miles through the heart of the midwest, and why that particular statistic is of any relevance to anything at all.
What, has there been a run on mac and cheese in Chicago, and the 500+ stores and god knows how many distribution centers are all tapped out? Or does Atlanta boxed mac and cheese taste better than Chicago boxed mac and cheese? And god damn it, I need my shitty boxed mac and cheese RIGHT FUCKING NOW, so you'd better same-day that shit.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Think of all the free publicity Walmart gets when a dozen dime-store duchesses in animal skin prints roll around in the Toy Department throwing punches over the last Tickle Me Roy Boy doll at the Alabama superstore. You simply cannot buy that kind of social media presence!
And how better to remind "Sales Associates" who's boss than to rip them away from their families on Thanksgiving? They should be thankful for their minimum-wage jobs and quit whining about that family values nonsense.
Work with me here, people. Get those assless chaps out of the closet, wiggle into that skin-tight XXXXXL spandex shirt that says "My Warm-up Is Your Workout", and head down to Wally World for a Black Friday - Cyber Monday Shop-a-thon!
Only one week left! It's almost time for really serious bargain hounds to grab the sleeping bags and get in line.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
And so... what's keeping me from ordering from a different online service? It sounds like Walmart thinks their only competition is themselves. Let's disabuse them of that.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.