[portmanteaufu]

Even at the slightly lower price point ($98/yr for WalMart Plus vs $119/yr for Prime), this new offering feels rather anemic. It gets you fast (sometimes same day) delivery of a popular subset of their catalog. Prime has music, video, reading, twitch, grocery delivery, etc in addition to fast delivery.

> "We're not launching Walmart Plus with the intent to compete with anything else," Whiteside [Walmart's chief customer officer,] said when asked about Prime. "We're launching it to meet the needs of our customers."

Sure.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

My mom doesn't care about Prime music, video, reading, twitch, grocery delivery, etc.

And my mom shops at Wal-mart NON-STOP. There are a lot of people like here. This is for them.

[echelon]

> My mom doesn't care about Prime music, video, reading, twitch, grocery delivery, etc.

I don't care about any of those either.

Another post in this thread mentioned Walmart's sale of Vudu as premature in light of this offering, but I prefer an unbundled, single-purpose service. I don't want groceries from my television provider.

I'm excited by this.

[rootsudo]

Agreed, my parents are the same way. She refuses target, and I don't know why. The 5% card discount doesn't even convince her, nor the empty lines, wider aisles, etc.

I can't handle Walmart's anymore, maybe it's pandemic times, but they're overstretched, overcapacity, multiple of people in one place and a frenzy. They weren't always like that too.

[dawnerd]

Same, can't go into a walmart anymore. They started right before the pandemic with treating everyone like a criminal. I get they have higher theft, but if you watch me checkout with a cashier, you don't need to go through every item in my cart and scan them with the hand scanner. I can't imagine their scan and go working any better.

[JMTQp8lwXL]

The bifurcation of where the lower middle vs upper middle shops for general household items which both groups need is a notable trend. I typically shop at Target, but went to a Walmart for the first time in years. Everything is locked down. It's a demonstrably different experience, and it feels part of the trending inequality.

[dawnerd]

I’ve been into some targets that were really locked up. Depends on the area, but you’re absolutely right.

[bgorman]

I highly doubt you are under any obligation to let them do this. If I were you I would have told them to get lost and would never return.

[dawnerd]

Yep, that's what I've done and they end up calling security and it ends up being a huge hassle since theres always cops outside. That's why I just wont go back.

[copperx]

It's really location specific. In smaller towns where there are few big box retailers, the Walmart experience is great. But in big cities? For a long time I didn't understand why people complained endlessly about Walmart until I visited a Walmart in California, then it all made sense.

[sjtindell]

That’s funny, I love visiting Bay Area Walmarts because I get to feel like I’m in a low budget consumerist Mad Max movie, wandering among heaps of clothes and appliances strewn across the aisles, not an employee in sight.

[WWLink]

I dunno about where your parents live, but out here where I live, Target kinda took Walmart's place. There are very few Walmarts, and so the Targets are about as bad as Walmart is in other places I've lived in the past lol.

It's like the experience doesn't scale. Long lines, filthy (often broken) carts, and they don't restock the shelves often enough. Of course, that was all pre-COVID. I haven't been in a store since March.

[theduder99]

probably the same reason I don't shop at Target: because they went full SJW

[giancarlostoro]

I shop at both and what annoys me most is when they have self-checkout lanes but they don't make them larger sections: they have a bunch of closed up register lanes, it wouldn't kill them to ditch 1 more lane or two to make a larger self-checkout lane section. Target feels like they're much more guilty of this than Walmart from past experience.

One thing that did annoy me is now after COVID Walmart employees complain if you have more than 10 items in the self-checkout lane, but there's no sign suggesting self-checkout is for a small amount of items. One lady was being loud and obnoxious about it, even when nobody was talking to her.

If Walmart and Target will let me pay from an app and just walk up to a machine to print out my receipt, I'd be using their app a lot more. I don't even care about having to bag up my stuff, I got my own bags for groceries in my car already. I guess the trickery is for grocery items that must be weighed.

[WWLink]

Out here Target went hardcore on self checkout a while ago. Now you'll see like 2 registers open, kinda sucks if you have a lot of items.

[bashook]

Scan and Go is included with Walmart Plus.

[fooey]

I wish there was a version of Prime that had all the unrelated fluff removed

I only want the store features, I don't care about the rest, and when they keep raising the price to subsidize their content creation it makes me have to re-decide every time if it's still worth the cost.

[doktorhladnjak]

I canceled Prime recently for those same reasons.

A lot of items still have free shipping. Amazon will give very pessimistic delivery date estimates and try to upsell Prime at every opportunity, but packages still get here fairly quickly. More often than not, an order arrives in 2 or 3 days even without Prime, almost always faster than the estimate given at checkout.

Ymmv, but it seems clear to me that Prime is more about manipulating purchasing behavior to buy more and the add-ons like video and grocery delivery than about the advertised free 2 day shipping.

[djohnston]

Sounds like a burgeoning cable company

[koolba]

You can also share prime for free with your family. Not just on the same account. I don’t think it includes the TV etc but you do get the free 2-day shipping.

[rdtwo]

I don’t know how she finds anything on their website it’s an excruciating experience, like using bing as your primary search engine e

[kube-system]

Maybe Walmart is betting on the idea that most people would rather use Spotify, Netflix, don't have a Kindle, and don't live near a Whole Foods.

[triceratops]

Wal-mart doesn't commingle inventory, right? So long as you don't buy from third-party sellers, it's guaranteed to come from Wal-mart itself, with all the non-counterfeit guarantees that implies?

[rdtwo]

Yes hence why we buy kids stuff there or target

[jimbob45]

If they can keep X% of people out of their store happily, that makes for a better shipping experience for those that actually do go to the store. Even better, that’s potentially more shelf space for other products.