My local Walmart is now offering a pickup service: order online and pick up at the store. I am mobility impaired, and this service could be very helpful to me. If you have used Walmart or other pickup services, I’d like to hear your experiences.
Mostly I’d be ordering a lot of pet food, maybe 100 cans of Fancy Feast, and some bags of dry food.
I’ve shopped at this Walmart for decades, and I doubt very much that they’re capable of putting an order together without error. In my experience, errors are always in their favor. So I would have to compare what I get to what I was charged for, and I’d probably have to do this at pickup time. I’d have to unbag everything and check it against the receipt, which might be more inconvenient than just shopping in the store.
The web site offers many varieties that I’d like to get but have never actually known the store to stock. I suspect that quite a bit of what I order will not be available, resulting in what I get not being what I ordered. Not a big deal, except it adds to the confusion of verifying my order.
Honestly, I’m doubtful that Walmart can pull this off with any competency, but I’m willing to be convinced otherwise. Perhaps there are procedures in place that I’m unaware of.
I’ve used their pick-up services here in Canada. I did it a lot this past year, because my father was very ill, and my Mother needed help. She’d place the order online, and then e-mail me the pick up code, and I’d go get the stuff.
There were never any problems with items being shorted. Occasionally they would be out of a particular product, but their system for managing that seemed okay. When ordering, you could check a box indicating that it was okay to offer a close substitute product, which happened a few times. For other items that you don’t want to substitute, they told you when they carried out the order that the item wasn’t included.
Also, it seemed like they had hired additional staff specifically to run this system. So the service might be better than what you’re used to.
Of course, YYMV, Buyer Beware, and all that. But it worked well enough for me that I’d recommend at least giving it a try.
I haven’t used Walmart but I have used Target’s pickup service and had no problem. There was always stuff I couldn’t find in the store but they always seem to find it. They are also fast. Yesterday I ordered online and they texted me within an hour that it was ready. I find the service at my local store to be excellent.
Have you looked in to any home delivery services for your pet food? Like Chewy.com or even Petsmart or Petco? If that is mostly what you are getting why not have it delivered to your home? Then try Wal Mart’s service for your people food.
I did it. Once. Last year. Several people ahead of me, took some time due to slow workers, too much paperwork, etc.
The person that got my package wanted to open the mailer-type thing it was in to verify its contents. I wanted verification, too. It had a handy pull zip thing. He got out a pair of scissors and slowly cut into the other end. Turns out the wrapper was two layers of paper with a bunch of fluffy paper between for padding which went all over the place. Nice job there brainiac.
I only went with WalMart because Amazon was sold out and I needed it semi-soon. (I.e., not that far from last resort.)
Petsmart and Petco are too expensive for me. I go through over 4,000 cans of Fancy Feast a year, and saving even a penny per can adds up. (I care for rescue cats. You wouldn’t believe my vet bills.)
Not too long ago I checked out Chewy.com, and it was more expensive than Walmart, but I just looked again, and they are competitive now, as long as I get free shipping. I will give it a try.
I did it o nce, I think it was my wireless router. The line at the WalMart checkout counter for the in-store pickup was so long, it would have been faster to just go and find one on the shelf and check it out at a register.
I was recently looking for somethng at WalMart, and they didnt have it, so I phoned Office Depot from the WalMart floor, and they said Yes, they have one, and they went and got it off the shelf, and when I arrived at Office a few minutes later, it was waiting there for me at the cashier.
I LOATHE Wal-Mart but Ivylad likes the prices better than Target. I’ve convinced him to use the pick up service twice. (Confession time: It prevents him from roaming the aisles and grabbing stuff that isn’t on the list. :D)
The first time, no problem (they keep the cold stuff in the fridge for you, so no issues with melting ice cream.) The second time, it turns out they only had ONE guy running all the pallets out. When I pulled up there were at least six or seven other cars waiting. He was friendly, if a bit frazzled, and when I got home Ivylad realized I hadn’t gotten everything. It seems they forgot to bring out some of the cold stuff, so I had to go back. Overall, it beats fighting the Wal-Mart people inside the store (shudder.)
The first time we tipped, the second time I forgot (I rarely carry cash). Next time we’ll make sure we have some money on hand to tip.
For pet food, I’d certainly look at Amazon, and if you are ordering tons of it, Amazon Prime might even be worth it for you. And of course Amazon and similar have the advantage of delivering directly to you.
At my Wal-Mart, I’ve used the pickup service about 4 times now. Three out of the 4 times I’ve used it, they’ve been out of stock on something I’ve ordered.
The last time I ordered, they attempted to substitute a couple of items I’d asked for with other items that wouldn’t work for me - for example, I generally order pint sizes of milk, since I mainly use it in recipes, and they wanted to substitute a quart, which I knew would go bad before I could use all of it. So I had to refuse that at pickup. They do allow you to disallow substitutions at the time you order, but of course that could mean that you don’t get that item at all, so you do need to think about if that would be OK for you or not. I’d say that’s the greatest disadvantage - if you are in store, you can go with a ‘plan B’ if they don’t have exactly what you want, but having someone else trying to second-guess that doesn’t work so well.
In my area, they’ve also changed the method of pickup - instead of calling them when you are on your way to pick up, you now need to use an app on your phone to alert them. I’ve not used it since the change.
It’s been clear to me that they’ve been trying very hard to make this work, but I’m not feeling very motivated to use it again.
I just realized that I too LOATHE Walmart and would prefer not to shop there, but they are very close, and they’ve driven all nearby competitors out of business. Plus, their prices on staples are often considerably below anyone else.
However, I’m now convinced that they will screw up the pickup thing. At best it will be a crap shoot. I’m looking at alternatives. Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions.
You think that if what you ordered on the Walmart website is not available that they’ll ship a different item? That’s never been my experience. One reason they’re not likely to do it is that you’re going to return the unwanted stuff, which costs them money. So if the price is right, I’d recommend ordering from walmart.com.
What I was talking about was the PICKUP service offered by the local store. You order online, the local store puts the order together and calls when it’s ready (a few hours), and you go pick up the order at the store. If one or more of the items is not already in the store, you won’t get it.
The employees at my local Walmart are generally stupid and surly (I’m sure it’s a horrible place to work). I would expect there to be incorrect items in my order, for whatever reason.
In that case I recommend you try the ship-to-home option instead of in-store pickup. It might be more convenient, particularly if you’re getting heavy, bulky things like cases of cat food.
For whatever it’s worth, I’ve used Walmart’s pickup service a few times, when they had a particular item that was unavailable elsewhere, and it was fine.
I’ve used this service multiple times and mostly love it. The workers are the store I use are pretty good about getting the order right, being courteous, and getting it out pretty fast. They have a number you can call to tell them you’ve arrived, and I believe they also have a smartphone app for this purpose, which I have not used. If you go enough times, like I have, the workers will remember you and and the day and time of day you usually make the appointment for, which seems to make things a little easier. I don’t know how they do this, because Wal-Mart must be a crappy place to work, but they’ve been very nice.
Sometimes they substitute an item they didn’t have in stock but for the most part this has been okay. The biggest problem I’ve had is that when I’m actually ordering online, they have some items that I regularly buy and I know they must have (staple items that a store would not usually run out of except in unusual circumstances) but are listed as “out of stock.”
For the most part it’s great and makes it easier shopping for recipe ingredients since I’m a very unorganized person.
Are you talking about the grocery-type pickup? My sister in law does that at her local walmart and I’m pretty sure she doens’t have to get out of the car. Very convenient for her.
If you are talking about the site-to-store/pickup-in-store-today of GM stuff on the website, this has been a frustrating experience about 1/2 the time and completely seamless the other half. When I did this just before Christmas, the walmart I chose had the store pickup in the back, with a long line, and staffed by one person who herself had mobility and strength issues, which led to long waits for items (assuming they’d been pulled at all).