Im not sure I've ever been to a Walmart, but isn't the appeal that it's a one stop shop (+ low prices)? That seems pretty damn useful and has approximately nothing to do with cross-region price differences.
Right, but that makes the online component even more confusing. Why would you ever order from walmart.com if they don’t offer those competitive prices? Amazon has plenty of stock, more than walmart can compete with. I can’t buy notebooks from japan from walmart—at least, not of the same quality, variety, and price amazon offers.
I had the impression that they're just saying that Wal-Mart's prices online are occasionally higher than their prices in-store, not that their online prices are higher than Amazon's.
I'm becoming increasingly wary of buying things on Amazon. I've received bootlegs from listings that looked genuine, fallen prey to misleading reviews for things that turned out to be of substandard quality, and so on. And it's been getting worse over the last couple of years. And this is even with "fulfilled by Amazon" items. They're not good at policing their reviews or listings for accuracy, and it often turns out that the same listing might get you different products between different orders.
> Why would you ever order from walmart.com if they don’t offer those competitive prices?
I've bought from Walmart online only once or twice ever: in one case they had the camera I wanted for $250 cheaper than Amazon and in another Amazon didn't have the product at all.
There are no Walmarts in San Francisco AFAIK, but there were plenty in LA, where I grew up. We just never went to them, you'd have to ask my mom (and all of my friends' parents) why.