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It annoys me to no end that Walmart.com defaults to mostly 3rd party junk when you search. Every single time I have to adjust search settings to ‘in-store’ only

It annoys me to no end that Walmart.com defaults to mostly 3rd party junk when you search. Every single time I have to adjust search settings to ‘in-store’ only, which isn’t a 1 second fix when you’re on mobile just due to network latency. The only reason I ever buy from Walmart is when I want the product the same day and am willing to drive 10 min to my local store. If that isn’t the case, I have the entire internet of sellers to choose from and it surely isn’t going to be Walmart that I pick.

pengaru 4y ago
Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined people would be upset about not having access to what wal-mart stocks in-store vs. its web site. The shelves are largely stocked with cheaply made chinesium junk as it is! Try buy a can opener that doesn't bend on first use or a wooden spoon in your local wal-mart, I dare you. It's just one step above DOLLAR GENERAL from where I'm sitting.
- jefftk 4y ago
  The Walmart stores will sell items that make cost-quality trade-offs you wouldn't, but they don't sell outright frauds like this HD.
  - blincoln 4y ago
    I generally go out of my way to avoid Walmart, but the one recent datapoint I have was a flour sifter bought there. It didn't work even when brand new. The design was physically flawed, not a one-off defective item.[1] It was essentially a film prop. It looked like a flour sifter, and AFAICT it was really made from stainless steel, but one couldn't use it to sift more than maybe a handful of flour before it became permanently useless. Didn't do anything to change my opinion about buying things from them, and seems like "outright fraud", just not at the level of a fake 30TB SSD.
    - jefftk 4y ago
      It seems like you intended to link the item but didn't?
  - pengaru 4y ago
    There's a threshold in the cost-quality trade-offs past which it's indistinguishable from fraud.
- nazgulsenpai 4y ago
  The only time I shop in a physical Walmart store is when I need something I can't wait for, on which case I check In-Store on the website first and it is indeed clunky.
- somehnguy 4y ago
  Walmart does indeed sell a lot of dollar store quality items like you’re describing. But for most items they have a higher quality (not high quality- just higher) sitting right next to the cheapest one on the shelf. The kitchen equipment aisle is what comes to mind here - you can buy the cheap spoon for $.99 or you can buy the better one that doesn’t have the issues you describe for a few dollars more. Which one you buy is up to you. We just bought a midrange quality ice cream scoop from Target locally, the thought process being that Target usually has higher quality items. Then later that same day we went to Walmart for some low quality disposable items and saw that exact ice cream scoop for a dollar less than Target. Oops.
- delusional 4y ago
  I'd rather buy crap from a namebrand that has an address I can send a complaint to, than some anonymous dropshipper that's just going to fold and reopen within a week.
- copperx 4y ago
  > The shelves are largely stocked with cheaply made chinesium junk as it is! I don't understand this complaint in this day and age. Can you point me to a brick-and-mortar store that has mostly high-quality long-lasting items?
  - tcmart14 4y ago
    Not only that, I've also been bitten by cheaply made junk stamped "made in the USA." As another commenter said, at least with going in the store, there is usually some company attached to the product I can contact if really needed. Regardless of the cheaply made stuff's origin. Third party online retailers, much of the time end up ghosted or someone trying to play off as being incompetent.
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    Never heard of Best Buy selling fake stuff, at least not yet. For spoons and such, there are dedicated stores like Sur La Table, which of course cost a lot more.
  - pengaru 4y ago
    There are plenty of such stores selling quality goods, brick-and-mortar is too general. But in terms of big-box retailers it has indeed become a depressing reality in the USA, ever since Sears closed down. FWIW the last few times I abandoned hope in the kitchenware aisles of Wal-Mart I found something reasonable at Bed Bath & Beyond, a brick-and-mortar store. But it did admittedly require still splurging on basically top-of-the-line variants at BB&B. Such options were nowhere to be found in Wal-Mart though, not even close. My impression is that the big-box retailers just don't go deep on the quality axis, they instead go wide on the quantity axis in terms of kinds of products. Within the ~quality axis they often just have cosmetically different looking dolled-up variants of more or less the same garbage with a higher price tag. But if you go somewhere with a narrower scope like BB&B, you can at least find tangible differences along the quality axis. And they sure demand top-of-the-line prices for quality levels we once took for granted before China turned up the wick on this race to zero :(
- Cyberdog 4y ago
  …and after that can opener bends on first use, I can take it straight to the same Walmart and get a replacement or refund. No wait, no mailing stuff back and forth. This is on top of the immediate gratification (for lack of a better term when it comes to can openers) of getting the opener immediately in the first place, as should I ever find myself in need of a new can opener, it will almost certainly be because my current one broke or got lost and I have a can I need to open right now. I don't find buying stuff online instead of in person nearly as attractive a proposition as I used to. Whether that's just because of the negative experiences or just because of priority rebalancing after growing older, I have no way of knowing, but whenever I need to buy something I almost always look for it at several local stores first, either in-person or via the "pick up in store" option on their sites.

pengaru 4y ago

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined people would be upset about not having access to what wal-mart stocks in-store vs. its web site. The shelves are largely stocked with cheaply made chinesium junk as it is! Try buy a can opener that doesn't bend on first use or a wooden spoon in your local wal-mart, I dare you. It's just one step above DOLLAR GENERAL from where I'm sitting.

jefftk 4y ago
The Walmart stores will sell items that make cost-quality trade-offs you wouldn't, but they don't sell outright frauds like this HD.
- blincoln 4y ago
  I generally go out of my way to avoid Walmart, but the one recent datapoint I have was a flour sifter bought there. It didn't work even when brand new. The design was physically flawed, not a one-off defective item.[1] It was essentially a film prop. It looked like a flour sifter, and AFAICT it was really made from stainless steel, but one couldn't use it to sift more than maybe a handful of flour before it became permanently useless. Didn't do anything to change my opinion about buying things from them, and seems like "outright fraud", just not at the level of a fake 30TB SSD.
  - jefftk 4y ago
    It seems like you intended to link the item but didn't?
- pengaru 4y ago
  There's a threshold in the cost-quality trade-offs past which it's indistinguishable from fraud.
nazgulsenpai 4y ago
The only time I shop in a physical Walmart store is when I need something I can't wait for, on which case I check In-Store on the website first and it is indeed clunky.
somehnguy 4y ago
Walmart does indeed sell a lot of dollar store quality items like you’re describing. But for most items they have a higher quality (not high quality- just higher) sitting right next to the cheapest one on the shelf. The kitchen equipment aisle is what comes to mind here - you can buy the cheap spoon for $.99 or you can buy the better one that doesn’t have the issues you describe for a few dollars more. Which one you buy is up to you. We just bought a midrange quality ice cream scoop from Target locally, the thought process being that Target usually has higher quality items. Then later that same day we went to Walmart for some low quality disposable items and saw that exact ice cream scoop for a dollar less than Target. Oops.
delusional 4y ago
I'd rather buy crap from a namebrand that has an address I can send a complaint to, than some anonymous dropshipper that's just going to fold and reopen within a week.
copperx 4y ago
> The shelves are largely stocked with cheaply made chinesium junk as it is! I don't understand this complaint in this day and age. Can you point me to a brick-and-mortar store that has mostly high-quality long-lasting items?
- tcmart14 4y ago
  Not only that, I've also been bitten by cheaply made junk stamped "made in the USA." As another commenter said, at least with going in the store, there is usually some company attached to the product I can contact if really needed. Regardless of the cheaply made stuff's origin. Third party online retailers, much of the time end up ghosted or someone trying to play off as being incompetent.
- hot_gril 4y ago
  Never heard of Best Buy selling fake stuff, at least not yet. For spoons and such, there are dedicated stores like Sur La Table, which of course cost a lot more.
- pengaru 4y ago
  There are plenty of such stores selling quality goods, brick-and-mortar is too general. But in terms of big-box retailers it has indeed become a depressing reality in the USA, ever since Sears closed down. FWIW the last few times I abandoned hope in the kitchenware aisles of Wal-Mart I found something reasonable at Bed Bath & Beyond, a brick-and-mortar store. But it did admittedly require still splurging on basically top-of-the-line variants at BB&B. Such options were nowhere to be found in Wal-Mart though, not even close. My impression is that the big-box retailers just don't go deep on the quality axis, they instead go wide on the quantity axis in terms of kinds of products. Within the ~quality axis they often just have cosmetically different looking dolled-up variants of more or less the same garbage with a higher price tag. But if you go somewhere with a narrower scope like BB&B, you can at least find tangible differences along the quality axis. And they sure demand top-of-the-line prices for quality levels we once took for granted before China turned up the wick on this race to zero :(
Cyberdog 4y ago
…and after that can opener bends on first use, I can take it straight to the same Walmart and get a replacement or refund. No wait, no mailing stuff back and forth. This is on top of the immediate gratification (for lack of a better term when it comes to can openers) of getting the opener immediately in the first place, as should I ever find myself in need of a new can opener, it will almost certainly be because my current one broke or got lost and I have a can I need to open right now. I don't find buying stuff online instead of in person nearly as attractive a proposition as I used to. Whether that's just because of the negative experiences or just because of priority rebalancing after growing older, I have no way of knowing, but whenever I need to buy something I almost always look for it at several local stores first, either in-person or via the "pick up in store" option on their sites.