[beerandt]

This is why, IMHO, Walmart will eventually win this aspect of the online shopping war.

Supply chain control.

Amazon may continue to dominate AWS and even the 3rd party marketplace, but they've already ruined their brand reputation as a supplier.

Edit: Sold and shipped 3rd party marketplace may survive.

[toast0]

Unfortunately, Walmart has integrated a 3rd party marketplace onto their site too; so who knows when they will start fulfilled by Walmart and comingling. There's also persistent stories of Walmart demanding lower priced items and being ok with the lower quality, not always with different UPCs.

[beerandt]

The funny thing about Walmart 3rd party, is it always seems to be drop shipped by a competitor, and comes in a clearly branded box. I've gotten boxes from Newegg, Target, Wayfair, and even Sam's Club.

Still a better option than Amazon (for now, at least).

[dangrossman]

This is the legacy Wal-Mart took over by acquiring Jet.com in 2016. They were a brand new site with millions of products in their catalog, yet didn't actually stock a huge portion of them. When I bought a wifi router from Jet, they simply ordered it for me from the Newegg website, and paid Newegg more than I paid Jet. It arrived in the Newegg box with the Newegg invoice.

[antonvs]

> paid Newegg more than I paid Jet.

Gotta love startup funding.

[DiabloD3]

Sam's Club is Walmart, though.

I can buy Sam's Club brands and/or sizes first party through Walmart.com, and I could do so before the Jet.com-ification of the Walmart website... it just wasn't well known until recently.

[beerandt]

I know... that's part of what makes it so interesting.

There are still 3rd party sellers somehow selling Walmarts own product cheaper via Sam's Club. Or sometimes for products that aren't available on both public facing sites. (Sam's and Walmart)

Which is probably why Walmart made the effort to better integrate the brands.

[kevin_thibedeau]

I opened a Wal-Mart account for a product that was "reserved for Prime" and I couldn't buy from Amazon. It came from the same third party supplier.

[Scoundreller]

Arbitrage at its finest!

[nordsieck]

> so who knows when they will start fulfilled by Walmart and comingling.

Fulfillment is just fine (indeed - beneficial to small businesses) as long as there is no inventory co-mingling.

[newnewpdro]

It's not like shopping at Wal-Mart isn't without its own kinds of bait and switch practices.

There was a time when I went to Wal-Mart to buy a new package of cheap cotton ankle socks every month or so, incrementally replenishing my cache, over the period of about a year.

The exact same brand, make, and size of socks, what were ostensibly identical, would vary in their constituent materials at what seemed to be random. One month they'd be ~80% cotton. The next month ~80% polyester. For what appeared to be the same damn product.

I don't know if this is something the big brands do in cooperation with Wal-Mart, or if it's entirely out of Wal-Mart's control and something Hanes/FTL has started doing independently. But next time you see packages for socks, check out the contents. In Wal-Mart the contents are printed on an adhesive-backed sticker. They use a sticker because it gets switched all the time, presumably to whatever was the cheapest recipe/supplier at the time. There's basically no persistence to what the SKU actually represents.

The Wal-Mart advantage, in my opinion, is that I have the opportunity to actually scrutinize the instance I will take home of the thing I'm purchasing, before doing so.

With Amazon I can't possibly know if they'll send me the 80% cotton or 80% polyester variant of the same SKU.

I've noticed similar practices with canned fish. Depending on what day of the week it is, the same canned fish e.g. beachcliff sardines in water, will have salt or won't have salt in the ingredients list. It seems to correlate with the country of origin. Same SKU, different ingredients. You have to look really closely at the package to notice it, but you definitely notice it when eating the stuff.

[toomanybeersies]

There's quite a good book I read a while ago about store-brand supply chains called Where the Underpants Come From [1]. It's a travelogue where the author travels through Asia tracing the entire logistical chain for a pair of underpants. It's a fun read and covers a lot of this stuff.

> There's basically no persistence to what the SKU actually represents.

I disagree. The SKU represents generic ankle socks. They're a commodity.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3322867-where-underpants...

[wpietri]

What newnewpdro describes is definitely not a commoditized product. Real commodities have exacting standards. E.g., US grain standards: https://www.gipsa.usda.gov/fgis/usstandards.aspx

Or the standards on commodity exchanges, like Kansas City Hard Red Winter Wheat Futures, which come in 5,000 bushel lots and require a deliverable grade of "No. 2 at contract price with a maximum of 10 IDK per 100 grams; No. 1 at a 1 1/2-cent premium. Deliverable grades of HRW shall contain a minimum 11% protein level. However, protein levels of less than 11%, but equal to or greater than 10.5% are deliverable at a ten cent (10¢) discount to contract price. Protein levels of less than 10.5% are not deliverable." -- from https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/agricultural/files/fact-car...

Real-world commodities have exacting standards precisely to prevent this kind of nonsense.

[Spooky23]

That’s why its a discount chain.

If you want consistency in terms of quality, go upmarket. Even a JC Penney or Kohl’s will be more consistent for the socks.

[beerandt]

Yes, they certainly have their own supply chain issues, but at least they still tightly control it.

Even if product quality might vary (or even different items under the same upc), the product is never (ime) misrepresented, and I've never had any concern about getting a counterfeit.

Expecting 100% consistency.... Thats probably going to be a disappointment.

[mcguire]

Walmart has ... issues ... with their supply chain for their physical stores. Part of the problem is that they're big enough to enable Walmart-specific versions of products.

[beerandt]

As someone who hates this practice, including store-brand labels (ie Sam's Choice)...

At this point I'll happily take the Walmart-specific version over the risk of an Amazon supplied product.

[Spivak]

As someone who buys 90% Kroger-brand stuff I'm wondering what you have against store-brands?

Don't get me wrong -- I'm with you that co-branded products like "Only at Target" KitchenAid are pretty much trash but store-brand stuff doesn't really seem that different to me than any other brand on the shelf. Kroger brand pretzels are dope, their Oreo clone is garbage, c'est la vie.

[beerandt]

I think you kinda answered it yourself. For an unknown product, the store brand is a crapshoot.

The store has an incentive to stock it's own brand product beyond what the incentive for competitors is. Ie, they are going to carry a competitor either because it's a good product that sells, or the competitor has paid for shelf space (and is betting it's own money that it's product is good).

Neither of these necessarily applies to a store brand. So even if it's between store brand and unknown 3rd party competitor, I'll go 3rd party first.

That said, there are some store brand products that, having tested, I enjoy. It's just usually not worth the 25¢ to me for the gamble.

[Spivak]

Hmmm, interesting. My philosophy has pretty much always been to work my way up on price until it's acceptable. If store brand cookies turn out bad then I've only been hurt once and go back to the brand name -- but if I find a gem it means I'm saving money for a long while.

[patentatt]

Surprised nobody has mentioned Target here. It’s not quite as broad as Amazon or Walmart, but for what they carry I’m under the impression their inventory control is superior to the other two. It’s not a marketplace, and AFAIK they don’t drop-ship or commingle inventory.