Does anyone know if Walmart has consigned, third party merchandise like Amazon does (e.g. sold by X, but shipped prime)? And if so, does it get commingled with the Walmart supply chain inventory?
My issue with Amazon is that I'm afraid of knockoffs, counterfeits and plain old cheap crap with fake reviews (really, 2000 people decided to review your plastic drinking cups?).
These days, I'm shopping more and more at Target, who offers free two day delivery on orders above a certain threshold, good prices, a curated selection of items, good website experience and most importantly, no third party sellers intermingling their fake wares.
Walmart Marketplace on the website runs on a similar business model to the Amazon marketplace, so there are third party sellers on their website. In some cases Walmart sells goods on consignment, so it does not own the goods in question, but it is still the seller of record.
So, there is a good chance that if you buy something in person at a Walmart that the products you are buying were consigned from the brand, but you would never know. Products stocked at Walmart itself go through a very rigorous vetting process, so in general you will never find anything on Walmart shelves that is truly 100% crap. As far as I know, there is no commingling with Walmart.
All online reviews are fake; there are just some products and places where the reviews are less fake than in other places. In general people don't do as much Walmart review fakery because their website gets so much less traffic and sales than Amazon does. The fakes go where the money is.
Unlike getting a product on store shelves which requires passing through a rigorous, sometimes corrupt, but difficult-to-fake process, getting a product on Amazon or Walmart Marketplace is as easy as uploading a spreadsheet or filling out a product description.
> Unlike getting a product on store shelves which requires passing through a rigorous, sometimes corrupt, but difficult-to-fake process, getting a product on Amazon or Walmart Marketplace is as easy as uploading a spreadsheet or filling out a product description.
This is the key. For the most part, anyone can sell anything on Amazon. On other sites, even if the reviews are fake, at least there's (generally) someone at the retailer who sanity checks their products for a basic level of quality and provenance.
At present Walmart does not commingle its inventory with 3rd party sellers. Things sold 3rd party are also shipped 3rd party so it is currently immune to the counterfeit problem that amazon is having.
That's not entirely accurate. Walmart offers DSV (drop ship vendors) which is basically inventory as a service. Walmart pays the third party sellers for storing and shipping the item, but takes on the overhead of customer service and returns. The customer is never made aware of the fact that they bought it from a third party because even the shipping label is customized to match Walmart's labels.
Right but they don't have the "we pulled a counterfeit widget out of the community widget bin and have no idea who's to blame" issue that Amazon had since they aren't co-mingling inventory from multiple suppliers.
It may be worth noting that Walmart has a lot of products on the shelf designed specifically for them to be cheaper. So, not counterfeit, but the SKU might not be exactly the same as another store.
FYI Target has a service called "Restock" where you can get items the next day. I've used it a few times and it's not bad.
You can buy detergent and they'll overnight them from some warehouse in Illinois or whatever (I live in Georgia...). I'm sure the shipping costs them an arm and a leg. I think they can streamline their operations but maybe they just wanted to get out a MVP.
Only time I had an issue was last time I ordered formula for my infant it came a week late. It was really an issue of the courier (FedEx) but I got a refund, and the formula came a week later...so free formula. Yay?
My issue with Amazon is that I'm afraid of knockoffs, counterfeits and plain old cheap crap with fake reviews (really, 2000 people decided to review your plastic drinking cups?).
These days, I'm shopping more and more at Target, who offers free two day delivery on orders above a certain threshold, good prices, a curated selection of items, good website experience and most importantly, no third party sellers intermingling their fake wares.