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Walmart already does this. They keep everything on shelves at the local fulfillment center. I go there maybe once every two weeks and pickup my stuff. It's a
by frogpelt 13y ago
Walmart already does this.
They keep everything on shelves at the local fulfillment center. I go there maybe once every two weeks and pickup my stuff.
It's a pretty neat concept called retail.
- gaadd33 13y agoDo Walmart items ship out of your local superstore or do they ship from the regional hub? Assuming you buy from Walmart.com and don't wander the miles of aisles in the store.
- dangrossman 13y agoUsing the stores themselves as shipping hubs is still a limited pilot program at Wal-Mart. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/10/business/wal-mart-tests-same-day-delivery.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/10/business/wal-mart-tests-sa... http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/28/us-retail-walmart-delivery-idUSBRE92R03820130328 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/28/us-retail-walmart-...
- phamilton 13y agoI think he meant that he just goes to Walmart and shops.
- brenschluss 13y agoHaha funny, but this is so very different - I can't believe how many people on hacker news can't wrap their heads around the distinction between this 'anticipatory shipping' and retail. Amazon specializes in providing the long tail (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail) to customers; Walmart is the utter opposite. By aggregating predictive data about the cumulative micro-consumption habits of users, shipping times could be lowered for the products inside the long tail.
- ronaldx 13y agoIf you don't want to compare to Walmart, compare to a mom-and-pop store who stock products that they know local customers will buy, sometimes down to an individual customer level. This is traditional stock management, pure and simple. "To minimize [the cost of returns], Amazon said it might consider giving customers discounts" -- just like any other overstocked store.
- graeme 13y agoThis still doesn't address the long tail aspect. Amazon sells things I can't get at any local merchant.
- pessimizer 13y agoNot from what it would stock near you.
- brenschluss 13y agoAbsolutely incorrect. The long tail of products and the size of a store has nothing to do with each other. A mom and pop store is not going to cater to a local population any better just because it is small. It's hilariously wrong to think that people's buying habits are localized or consistent based on geography. If I need a linear carriage, a Razer Hydra, an obscure philosophy text by Merleau-Ponty, a 1/8" straight fluted HSS router bit, a jar of Mexican mole sauce, and a monitor arm mount -- where do I go? Walmart? My neighborhood mom-and-pop store? Of course not.
- novaleaf 13y ago++ because your rebuttals actually make sense :)
- ajcarpy2005 13y agoThe Wal-Mart product selection pales in comparison to what Amazon offers.
- pessimizer 13y agoBut not in comparison to what Amazon would be offering from a local fulfillment center.
- ultimape 13y agoThe set of things that I am planning to buy at walmart is small compared to what would exist at the fulfillment center.
- anigbrowl 13y agoOh, aren't you clever. The difference is that this is a way to get stuff to your door within a few hours of your placing an order, instead of you going somewhere very 2 weeks.
- claudius 13y agoMost local shops around here don’t mind delivering the item you want to your home after a phone call, though likely at a heftier premium than ‘standard’ online merchants.
- MichaelApproved 13y ago> though likely at a heftier premium than ‘standard’ online merchants That's the whole point. Amazon is trying to do this at a lower cost.
- kordless 13y agoCan I buy motherboards at Walmart?
- pessimizer 13y agoBut at Amazon I don't have to pay tax, because
- whoopdedo 13y agoYou've always had to pay tax on online orders, assuming your state has a sales tax. But no one ever bothered to file the voluntary form, costing the states lots of money that they should have by law. So states such as Virginia have cut deals with Amazon to collect tax from them. Congress is talking about making it easier for other states to do the same. The era of the tax-free internet is nearing an end.
- Gormo 13y agoIf they open a local distribution center in your state, then you will.