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'splain this marketing absurdity to me...


Three Foot Johnson

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Tuesday, my Fitbit Charge 2 finally died, so I looked up the price of a new Inspire 3 tracker on Walmart's site - 79.98, and available for curbside pickup in an hour or so. I drove into town, walked back to the electronics department, and found it was 99.95. I pointed out it was 79.98 on the Web site, and he said, "Yes sir, if you order it online, that's the price".

"But, it's right there, you don't even have to order it or anything..."

"Yes sir, but that's how the system works."

"So, if I buy it inside, it's 99.95, but if I stand here, pull out my phone, and order that Fitbit right there (pointing at it), it's twenty bucks cheaper and in 60 minutes or so, someone will walk out the side door to my car and hand deliver it to me??"

"Yes, sir."

So I pulled out my phone, ordered it, went to the in-store Subway for lunch, read the paper, got a text that my order was ready, went and got my car, parked in the curbside pickup parking lot next to the store, texted them I was there, and someone brought it out and handed it to me. :wacko:

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They’re promoting their OPD - Online Pick Department. My sister works at Walmart. That’s the only reason I know this. 
 

Walmart wants to kick Amazon’s butt to become the new Autofac - Strange robotic supplier and deliverer of all things in a Sci-Fi story by Phillip K. Dick. 

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1 hour ago, Three Foot Johnson said:

Aren't all online transactions self checkout?

Yeah, but I don't have to empty  a cart scan the bar code, bag it myself and carry it to my car.  And I don't have to put up the humongous variety of idiots that are running around store with no supervision whatsodamned ever.

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Ridiculous!! I understand the promotion of online shopping for these stores but not in the situation that Three Foot was in! It was right there in front of him and the clerk! 
I’m living in a world I don’t understand!:blink:

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Amazon has its own quirks as well. My daughter has Amazon Prime where I only use Amazon sometimes. So when I find something on Amazon I check it with both my plain account and then compare with her Amazon Prime account. I have found instances where the Prime price was higher than my plain account, sometimes as much as $20. I can only guess it is because I get free deliver but it takes 3 to 5 days to get to me and her Prime account gets it to me the next day. So in reality she is paying for her overnight delivery and doesn't realize it. 

 

TM

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13 hours ago, Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770 said:

Yeah, but you're not running the cash register for them. I actually like my local Walmart, but I WON'T run the register. I'm not getting paid to.

Know the feeling.

 

Look, I already have to come down to Walmart to pick up something.  I hate shopping in general and despise Walmart in particular.

 

But first, I gotta find it- without any help since every Wallyworld employee I speak to is either just getting off, on break or outside their department so the don't know where anything is located.

 

Now, they want me to ring it up, bag it and pay for it, too?

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1 minute ago, Smuteye John SASS#24774 said:

Now, they want me to ring it up, bag it and pay for it, too?

I won't do it. If there's not a cashier on a register, I ask an employee at the self checkout to run it for me. I've only had one person give me grief over it, and when I just stood there and stared at her, she found somebody else to take care of it for me. 

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They have had self checkout registers for a couple of years at the Wally-World where Mary shops.  They usually have 4 or more employees helping customers use them.  They have tried to get Mary to use them.  No. I don't work here.  Recently they have taken out several more regular check out lines and doubled the number of self checkout stations.  No one were using them.  

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29 minutes ago, Warden Callaway said:

They have had self checkout registers for a couple of years at the Wally-World where Mary shops.  They usually have 4 or more employees helping customers use them.  They have tried to get Mary to use them.  No. I don't work here.  Recently they have taken out several more regular check out lines and doubled the number of self checkout stations.  No one were using them.  

They did the same thing at my Walmart. I tell them the same thing. I tell other CUSTOMERS that too. I've had a few move lines, but most of them are sheeple anyways, so they do as they are asked. 

I half expect that in ten years or so, customers won't be allowed in the store anymore.

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24 minutes ago, Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770 said:

I half expect that in ten years or so, customers won't be allowed in the store anymore.

The biggest cost in retail is LABOR.

The 2nd biggest cost is shrink from theft or damage.

 

No retailer has ever wanted customers inside their store - but it was a necessary evil.

 

Warehouse systems lower labor - I no longer have to pay someone to stand around waiting for a customer.

I dont have to pay one person to stock my warehouse and then pay another group to stock shelves.

 

Getting the customer to pay online takes cash out of the system - giving my employees one less thing to steal.

 

A warehouse system "bottlenecks" the exits and allows for additional checks on product leaving the facility.

 

Yes, if you take a few employees; stockers, salespeople, cashiers out of the chain.

Get fewer items stolen - get fewer items packages opened "because I want to look at it - ok, Ill take it but I want an unopened one" - get fewer items broken - don't have to have display items.

 

Doing so dramatically lowers costs; that the retailer can lower their prices, carry it to your car or offer delivery and still make a larger profit.

 

Additionally online (out of store) retail purchasing is a 24/7/365 business model - generating more sales.

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1 hour ago, Creeker, SASS #43022 said:

The biggest cost in retail is LABOR.

The 2nd biggest cost is shrink from theft or damage.

 

No retailer has ever wanted customers inside their store - but it was a necessary evil.

 

Warehouse systems lower labor - I no longer have to pay someone to stand around waiting for a customer.

I dont have to pay one person to stock my warehouse and then pay another group to stock shelves.

 

Getting the customer to pay online takes cash out of the system - giving my employees one less thing to steal.

 

A warehouse system "bottlenecks" the exits and allows for additional checks on product leaving the facility.

 

Yes, if you take a few employees; stockers, salespeople, cashiers out of the chain.

Get fewer items stolen - get fewer items packages opened "because I want to look at it - ok, Ill take it but I want an unopened one" - get fewer items broken - don't have to have display items.

 

Doing so dramatically lowers costs; that the retailer can lower their prices, carry it to your car or offer delivery and still make a larger profit.

 

Additionally online (out of store) retail purchasing is a 24/7/365 business model - generating more sales.

Shrink is split between employee theft and customer theft.  According to most studies, employee theft is the bigger cause of loss of the two.  In my experience, internal theft is a lot more rare than customer theft, but, when it happens, the loss is a whole lot bigger.

 

Eliminating the public from the workplace via a warehouse model means that asset protection can do a lot more.

 

I can see a return to a showroom model.  Everything on the floor is a demo, the customer collects pull tickets for the items they want and goes to a checkout counter where it is rang into the system.  Once entered into the system, pickers in the warehouse assemble the order and bring it to the the customer.

 

The ordering apps are no different than what our ancestors were doing 100 years ago.  Back then, they rode to town, gave the store owner or clerk a list and the store personnel assembled the order.  The only thing different today is the list is electronic and we prepay instead of settling up at the end.

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17 hours ago, Warden Callaway said:

 

I know this is the future but this isn't for me. I want to see the receipt and make sure it is accurate and that I was charged correctly. I have been in computer technology for over 50 years and know they can do just about anything but they are still fallible because humans are controlling them and writing the code.

 

TM

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Online order & pick-up at the curbside pick-up area is the only way to order groceries unless you want to select your produce.  Wife's been doing it since Jan 2020.  Amazon Prime, walmart.com and other brick & mortar store's websites and if we can't find it there duckduckgo is where to find online vendors for what you want.  Hardware, lumber & shoes I buy at brick & mortar stores as well as firearms.  I have only bought a Uberti Winchester 73 half octagonal half round & 38/357 old model Vaquero online.  Both was because rifle model was scarce as hens teeth and the old model was out of production & I needed to match the form factor of the one I already owned.  To bad I had to settle for a Lipsey's special in blue.  My other Vaquero is SS with faux ivory grips.  I tried for months checking Gunbroker and I lost the bidding for a SS OM Vaquero and It took several months before the next OM in 38/357 with same barrel length showed up so I paid the Buy it now price.

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