It's not like it's two different companies so I'm not sure what there is to integrate. It's Walmart's website and Walmart sells and fulfills things different ways. Depending on the item and the store and customer locations, any one of a number of fulfillment means may be available - curbside pickup, or delivery by the store, or shipping from the store or a warehouse with 1 or 2 day arrival commitments, etc.,

Walmart has been implementing new procedures to compete directly with Amazon. There are items for sale on the website that are sold by others but shipped by Walmart. Or sold AND shipped by third party sellers - both exactly the same as what used to be called Amazon Marketplace and is now Amazon Sellers. There's also Walmart+, a competitor to Prime, that offers free delivery for orders not otherwise qualifying for same without a membership, and a few other perks.

Amazon and Walmart are neck and neck as huge retailers and the intense competition between the two means they'll do many things the same way. Walmart has what many think is an added advantage of many physical retail locations and existing warehouses. The only thing similar Amazon has is a few physical locations and its network of Whole Foods stores, whose offerings are mostly limited to food.

I've ordered a couple of times from Walmart.com. I can't remember what I ordered the first time, but the second time, it was a large quantity of waterlily fertilizer and a waterlily. I don't know why I thought to look there...just messing around on the computer and they had a good buy. It came in a couple of days. The waterlily that I ordered was one that I had previously for many years, a miniature named Helvola. As soon as I saw the waterlily, I knew it wasn't Helvola, because the pads were different. I didn't send it back though, because I could tell that it was a miniature and I wanted to see what it was going to be. Well, it was a miniature yellow, like Helvola, but the bloom was shaped differently and different characteristics...like the way the bloom was held. It is not a bad looking waterlily at all...but I still don't have Helvola, but I will order it this spring from a more reliable source for waterlilies. And I still have no idea what the name could be. I am fairly well versed on waterlily varieties...having grown them for over 50 years, and I have never seen any like it.

Items ordered from .com have not been accepted for returns or exchanges at the brick and mortar stores. Items such as Helova waterlilly or red hot wheel cars are substituted without informing the customer. Just my observations from the two times I used the .com site.

Good luck Lucille with receiving your order.

Elizabeth, when ordering for Whole Foods pickup through the Amazon site, it's necessary to indicate for each item - No Substitution, or Substitute with ....... a list of similar items. Is it tedious? I don't know but it does give you the option to choose. With Instacart, you can similarly indicate or intervene by messaging the shopper and saying either Yea or Nay or "do you see any....". And with a few regular grocery stores, it's a similar item by item indication for substitutions.

Whatever the system, we find doing it online faster and more convenient. And a way to avoid dunderheads in stores who think mask mandates don't apply to them.

Edit to add - we've ordered a number of things from Walmart's webstite for delivery or shipping for family oldsters who are unable to conveniently get things on their own. We've had no problems.

I don't have the option for Amazon/Whole foods or Instacart. Certainly, I still prefer online food shopping to walking around the store.

I learned the hard way to double check for and approve/decline substitutions when placing orders, and also whether an item is available for pickup. My Walmart app on Android shows the pickup or delivery info right under the items as you scroll through search results. You can filter for that as well, but I find it unnecessary.

And I haven't had to in awhile, but in the past I was able to return shipped items at their service desks.

Whenever I receive wrong or damaged items from curbside pickup, I notify through the app and get refunded right away, no need to return anything either.

I use the site every week or two, and it still drives me nuts. Ditto Elizabeth, but what bothers me more is even though I specify ship or pickup, the website often changes that on its own once the items are in my cart. A few weeks ago I tried to order both items for shipping and items for pickup at the same time, and I'll never do that again. What a mess.

I did receive the dot com items that were supposed to be delivered direct from the store last night. Ordinarily Walmart dot com uses Fedex to deliver, in this new integration the items can be delivered by the same individuals that deliver groceries. I did not have cash on hand because the delivery was so fast and unexpected, and there does not seem to be a present way in the system to add a tip for these unexpected deliveries (I usually do not tip Fedex drivers but do tip store delivery people.) I'm sure as time goes on Walmart will make further tweaks.

I try to order from Walmart but there is usually some hitch and I revert to Amazon because ordering there is so easy.

I had been ordering extensively from Amazon as well, however after my recent move I found that there are serious local USPS issues, and even though I requested other carriers be used, Amazon chooses USPS most of the time so far for this area.

I've ordered items from walmart.com both for shipment and delivery from the store, and never had a problem with either, I thought there was a way to add a tip for store delivery personnel, but maybe they changed that. I know I've done that in the past. I believe you can still return items that are sold by Walmart on the website to the stores. I think you have 90 days to return items and can also return things by mail.

I don't order from walmart.com very often, but I do like that their grocery department seems to carry items that other store don't have, and usually at a lower price than A. Don't they also have a program like Prime where you can get free delivery for a monthly fee ?

" A few weeks ago I tried to order both items for shipping and items for pickup at the same time, and I'll never do that again. What a mess."

alisande, I think you may have assumed things worked differently than they do. On most websites that offer different fulfilment modes, each selected mode is a different order. I'm not sure how it could be otherwise because different pickers and even likely different locations would be responsible for assembling each one of the modes you selected.

On the Amazon site used for Whole Foods orders, which so far in my experience is the Gold Standard for useful features and ease, you need to specify at the very beginning whether the order being submitted is for delivery or pickup. One or the other. Amazon also offers a lot of shelf stable groceries and paper goods. Same thing, an order of that nature can't be combined with a Whole Foods delivery or pickup order.

"I found that there are serious local USPS issues,"

Before Amazon switched to its own delivery system (which I think may be external contractors though showing the Amazon brand on trucks, no matter to me) in my area, smaller, mailbox sized purchases came via the Postal Service while larger things were usually UPS. I found Postal Service delivery was fine except for weekends, and especially troublesome for Sundays. I avoided purchasing small items likely to be so waylaid other than at the beginning of a workweek. In any event, the Amazon tracking system provides info on a delivery's status (though USPS is sometimes only once a day). If something gets lost, my experience is that Amazon will cheerfully refund or send again what was ordered, as the customer chooses. Even with third party sellers, an instance of which I experienced 2 months ago, a shipment sent USPS by a third party seller that got lost in the USPS system somewhere unknown. No problem getting it cancelled and refunded.

If you're having issues with Amazon purchases delivered by the Postal Service, the same would likely be true for your regular mail pieces too.

Lucille, I’m seeing ”Pick-up”, ”Delivery” and/or ”Shipping” options for my items when ordering from WMT. My preference is to have my items shipped since that is free and they come boxed up and not in a taped up plastic sack.

On my last two WMT orders requested to be shipped I’ve been notified that ”some items will be arriving early” and they are delivered by an off duty driver from one of the food delivery services. (I read an article where WMT was paying a flat $10 delivery fee to these drivers.)

I had one show up with a $3.76 bag of dental flossers. I was in no rush to get them, reluctant to tip when I’d requested shipping and not sure WMTs reasoning to pay a $10 delivery fee to get me that item.

I would love for Amy to recap some of her postal services experiences here, after reading about her issues mine seem more bearable but I am still ordering almost nothing from Amazon for the time being.

Unfortunately, too much time was wasted dealing with the current local USPS and until it is fixed, Walmart dot com will get more of my business. The post office would not deliver an Amazon package. Tracking would actually say the pckage was lost and would not be delivered. As Elmer pointed out, Amazon would refund. Then several days later the package would just appear at my door, usually in the evening, and tracking would say delivered. I would have to call Amazon and get recharged for the item. Too much aggravation especially if one orders from somewhere else after being refunded and then the item shows up from Amazon.

No thanks.

jrb, Walmart is trying to have a reputation as a similarly competent and reliable alternative to Amazon. I have no doubt that the silly, small one-off delivery was made to show their effort to make you a satisfied customer.

I had an interesting experience a few weeks ago. While looking through the Costco website, I found a number of frozen items I wanted to try that were not carried in the store but were available by shipment only. There was no charge for that when the order exceeded a certain dollar amount. Knowing Costco's reputation, I figured giving it a try was a no risk proposition, so I went through and put together a shopping cart with a number of things, all frozen. The site said that frozen orders were only shipped Monday-Wednesday. I put in the order on a Monday and looked forward to what would happen.

The order was shipped the next day (Tuesday) and two boxes were delivered by FedEx early afternoon on Wednesday. Imagine my surprise to find the items inside the box surrounded on all sides by an insulating material and packed with dry ice. Each item was completely frozen and as hard as could be. A grade of A+ for Costco and something I will do again.

Costco also delivers from stores to customer homes and I suspect as above, items chosen for delivery versus items chosen for shipment should be ordered separately.

Jrb, I like the Fedex shipping from Walmart too most of the time, but I have mixed feelings about the new program of local delivery, besides the tipping issue. One is the lack of notice, if one orders something, one might expect it in a few days but with this new program get it in a few hours. Ordinarily that would delight me but also recently they have expanded the delivery window for 'store to door' deliveries to 10 PM and to me that is pretty late to be getting packages but I live in an apartment complex and don't want to just leave it outside all night either.

Ugh Walmart has a few items I can't get elsewhere so I do an order every few months, but I don't think I will again after the last fiasco. I ordered, arrived when they told me, and waited about 30 minutes for my groceries. Got home and realized they gave me the wrong groceries, so I came back. They took the wrong food back, and then tried to give me ANOTHER wrong order. I waited for over two hours and never received my food so I finally left.

Trying to get a refund was another nightmare. I kept contacting corporate support, who would tell me to contact the store. The store would tell me that they can't do anything and I needed to contact corporate. I finally got someone to issue me a refund but then got a notice that I needed to return the groceries that were given to me in error that I had already returned. It took almost a month to get my refund talking to at least 15 people.

alisande, I think you may have assumed things worked differently than they do. On most websites that offer different fulfilment modes, each selected mode is a different order. I'm not sure how it could be otherwise because different pickers and even likely different locations would be responsible for assembling each one of the modes you selected.

Elmer, have you ever ordered from Walmart's website? The site used to have one section for pickup orders and another section for items to be shipped, but now they're all together. It might be different on the phone app, but on my computer screen the cart is shown over on the right, with pickup items at the top and shipped items at the bottom.

It's always asking, "Do you want this item shipped instead?" but doesn't pay any attention to whether I do or not. During one ordering experience I wanted to pick up the cat food, but the website kept moving it to be shipped. Frustrating.

I'm pretty savvy about online ordering. I've certainly done enough of it, even before the pandemic. And now it's the only way I shop. It's possible I failed to see something that would facilitate the Walmart ordering process, but that would surprise me. My DIL finds it similarly annoying.

It's annoying because the extra steps are so unnecessary. I could redesign that website myself and make it easier to use and far more pleasant for the customer. It could still promote shipping , which seems to be a big priority there.

This is just a guess but I think that WM is attempting to get everyone used to shipping as warehousing stuff is much cheaper than running a store.

The ones who still plan to keep their stores open like for example our local Canadian Superstore are keeping it very simple. We can do pick up and get other things shipped easily so far on the same order.

I say so far because I'm sure they would all love to ship everything to us and not run stores. At least that is my dark theory.

It's not like it's two different companies

They aren't, yet is certainly seems like it due to the discord and poor planning many have experienced when trying to order from their newly changed site. I am sure that they will change for the better, but this last change involving store personnel delivering orders from Walmart dot com was not planned well. The speedy delivery is positive, but the lack of enough notice of the delivery could lead to unattended packages and additional theft, and the possibility of late 'store to door' delivery hours without enough notice might not be good for some customers.

"Elmer, have you ever ordered from Walmart's website?

Yes, and recently - maybe 10 days ago, for an order shipped to a family oldster. As I mentioned in an earlier passage. Other things for myself at other times over the years - like electronic items when Walmart sometimes surprisingly has a better price, including once a large screen TV, a specific model I wanted because of its dimensions, that was $150 cheaper at Walmart than other places I checked. We don't regularly do shopping or buying at Walmart, more like one off things that perhaps Amazon is out of or where Amazon has spiked pricing unreasonably for products in demand.

I haven't ever mixed pickup vs shipping/delivery in one Walmart "order", it wouldn't seem like such a good idea.

As far as how Walmart's website works or doesn't, I assume each online retail sites has its own idiosyncrasies. It's certainly true for related/companion apps for stores - each is different, each has different rules and capabilities, you can do some things with one and you can't with another, etc. It's enough to remember what each does differently without assuming similarities or getting annoyed about same because it's to be expected.

Walmart dot com, as you like to call as if it were something distinct, is the internet web address for Walmart. Nothing less or more. It's a savvy company. If things are changing, assume the intent is to make improvements. Not to annoy customers.

Amazon, where we do more of our buying, changes too. The Whole Foods web experience, and its companion app, have also changed a lot. Some have been improvements. Some improvements have been slow. A good frame of reference is a grocery chain with locations in my area whose website and pickup experiences are terrible and need to change but haven't.

It's a savvy company. If things are changing, assume the intent is to make improvements. Not to annoy customers.

Of course, we all assume the changes are to be more competitive. As I already said I am sure that they will change for the better

or getting annoyed about same because it's to be expected.

We can agree to disagree. Their recent changes to the Walmart dot com site have been described by more than one as annoying, and my view is that, while I realize they will improve, I did not expect the difficulties I encountered.

I'm surprised that Walmart hasn't gone to a model more like the one Target uses. One each product page, you add items with different 'buttons' for delivery, pick up, or shipping. Sometimes items aren't available certain ways, but it is convenient and at a glance.

I've had a lot of problems with Walmart pages stating an item can be shipped, but then finding out differently once it's in the cart. I don't order from Walmart much because the system is a little wonky. It does surprise me how often we place an order for shipping and items are delivered from the store within a few hours. I get a kick out of it when that happens, but we never know which they are going to fulfill through shipping and which will show up in 3 hours from the local store.

Are you using the phone app or desktop/laptop?

Walmart is tinkering with varying things. I order from them every few weeks, and the last time I went to order it was a different web layout and I had the challenges expressed upthread about selecting ship to home vs. in store pick up. No offense, but you couldn't pay me enough to go inside one of their stores. :)

So I abandoned my efforts. Tried again a week later and the layout was back to something closer to what I was used to, although I agree it weirdly skips around between shipping vs. delivery from the store, and in-store pick up only. Doesn't matter to me if they ship it or their store drivers deliver it, but you do need to be careful that it doesn't default you to in store pick up only.

They are making a solid run at Amazon and I am sure they'll get this optimized shortly.

It's very hard to generalize, I think all retailers have been challenged with system design and implementation, and the caliber of employees they need to rely on. Some have done better than others, some try harder than others. I think all struggle with consistency from place to place.

We spend time in two different areas. The Target we use at one is a well tuned machine for pickup orders. At the other, they're nincompoops. Consistently. We've stopped trying to buy there. I wont generalize about Target because I think this is the world of retail.

Y’all haven’t got a clue. You haven’t even got a basket to find a clue. First Walmart is not just Walmart. You have to look and see if you are buying from Walmart.com or one of their companies that just sell on there. Then, you have to check if it is not Walmart, if you can retutn to the store.

If you want to shop, the first thing is to go and select only WALMART to shop from. Never use the other companies if you want to return.

If you think I am crazy, I worked for WM for 19 years. I have what is should be a permanent discount card, but it is not. If I go in a store or on WM.com, I get a discount, sometimes, If I order grocery pickup, I do not. GUESS WHAT, IT IS NOT the same company! Yeah, Walmart is not Walmart.

ETA: They lie!

Sherry, perhaps 19 years of working for Walmart has made you forget your manners. If that's the case, you have my sympathy. But we're not all clueless.

I think I can speak for most, if not all, when I say I'm well aware that lots of vendors sell on Walmart's website. But that has little or nothing to do with the preceding conversation--at least the part I was involved in.

The user-unfriendly ordering system I've referred to is what I use to make my grocery orders. I'm talking about fresh produce and fresh turkey, deli-sliced ham, frozen edamame, and various other foods and grocery items. That sort of thing. I pay for the orders online and pick them up curbside. None of it comes from non-Walmart vendors.

Y’all haven’t got a clue. You haven’t even got a basket to find a clue.

Must be a full moon.

I am sure they'll get this optimized shortly.

I think so too.

Contact their corporate headquarters. If enough people do it, something will change. I had the need to contact them once on another matter and a genuine person replied. It was promptly resolved. Now I am NOT saying that a couple emails will resolve this. But hundreds might?

"I worked for WM for 19 years"

What jobs or responsibilities did you have?

As others have mentioned, it is evolving. It's just frustrating as it does. No way WMT can continue to pay a $10 delivery fee for a $3.76 item as was the case in my post. I just expect items ordered to be "shipped" come that way. I mean, the service is free. I expect it to take a few days to get here and that's OK.

Sherry, maybe you didn't mean it to come across this way - but your comment feels weirdly rude to the rest of us, in what was a pretty friendly discussion about Walmart's web/app presence.

I avoid 3rd party sellers like the plague, after a really bad experience that Amazon finally made right. I am very careful to only buy from Amazon or Walmart, unless it is a very specific product from a very specific known company to me.

And as Alisande explained, none of that has any bearing on the website/app issues we've been so pleasantly chatting about.

Nope, I stand by what I said .Walmart, is NOT the company I knew from long ago. It is not the company Sam Walton founded. If Elmer is implying I was just a drudge he is wrong.

Sherry, WM.com appears to be a large waste management company.

"If Elmer is implying I was just a drudge he is wrong."

I wasn't implying anything.

I just looked - Walmart currently has 1.6 million employees in the US. I asked what jobs or responsibilities you had when you worked for the company.

Perhaps Sherry didn't mean to make that a link on purpose? Houzz automatically formats anything you type with a .com (or whatever) after it into a hyperlink.

I also am well aware that there are other sellers on walmart.com - Target's website has them as well. As I stated upthread, I learned the hard way to double, even triple check everything before hitting hitting the pay button.

I'm getting the impression that those experiencing these frustrations aren't shopping with the phone app...?

I'm fairly happy with the phone app. As I stated before, I can see under every item whether it's for pickup, delivery or shipping. I can also select to filter for that. It serves me up my prior purchased items at the top of results, so I don't have to spend time looking for them. It also tells me how many times I've bought an item, which I find helpful.

I can't recall the last time I used their website to shop, and I've never used it for my groceries.

I use the site every week or two, and it still drives me nuts. Ditto Elizabeth, but what bothers me more is even though I specify ship or pickup, the website often changes that on its own once the items are in my cart. A few weeks ago I tried to order both items for shipping and items for pickup at the same time, and I'll never do that again. What a mess.

same here. i'm sick of it and am getting more from A and trying out instacart this week. W should have the A website people fix their website for them. it's been messed up for months now. even if I mark things for delivery it won't let me complete the order. I have to remove anything in the upper section before it will process the order. that usually cuts my order in half. anything cold, frozen, deli, meat, even most canned items I can't get. last summer I could get potato chips, in the past 5 months I can't. it's ridiculous. and often when it says 2 day delivery- it takes 4-5 days.

As Dr Phil says, "I don't have a dog in this fight", but when I was in Walmart last week, I see that they have put in many more self-checkouts. That doesn't bother me, because I always check my groceries when I can, because I like to bag items myself, but I know a lot of people don't like to use them. When I say many more, I would say that far more than half will be self check-out.

I remembered the other item that I ordered from Walmart. That was a push lawnmower. I don't order things if I can easily pick them up somewhere, but it was late in the season, and everyone was sold out except for a couple of electric mowers. I wanted a plain old mower...nothing fancy. It came within a couple of days.

I wouldn't use their grocery ordering service.