While there are lots of places to poke holes in this new service from the Bentonville boys, It does have one major benefit. If it works, I won't have to CHECK OUT!
If I order on-line, I am assuming I will pay on-line. If that is the case, then I avoid Wal*Mart's major disaster area, and that is check out. Anybody who has been to a Wal*Mart store lately will note that having enough staff at the register area is always a problem. (caveat: At least this is true in the US southeast. I have not been to any Wal*Marts elsewhere recently.)
Wal*Marts self check out stands, which were introduced to many stores in the last 18 months, remain problematic. I have yet to get one to work well with a multi-sack order. Inevitably, I wind up with whomever the area supervisor is, helping me do what a Wally World associate should have been doing in the first place. I won't put up with that. I virtually always seek a register with a live person working the till. Self check-outs irritate me. I won't do it. I tend to call Wal*Mart by a different name.
"Welcome to the Hotel California: You can check out any time you like...but you can never leave"
This concept of buying on-line without being subjected to the 1 million square foot maze that is a Wal*Mart super center...is a GOOD thing. Wal*Mart can have my money. I'm happy to have their product. Humbly, I just want to leave. I hate shopping...99.95 percent of men do. We are mostly point and click folks. Give me a way to buy my stuff on-line and then leave me with my mouse and my remote. I can ask my bride to do the pick up. She loves Wal*Mart.
What I don't like is being subjected to shopping there. Get me IN...get me OUT. And heck yeah...I'd spend an additional few bucks if I knew it didn't add an additional 20 minutes to my wait in line to leave!
I consider that money well spent ransom.
Eric
clipped from news.yahoo.comWal-Mart shipping Web orders to stores for free
By Nicole Maestri
Tue Mar 6, 3:42 PM ET
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said on Tuesday that it is offering free shipping on thousands of items purchased on its Web site for pick-up in more than 750 of its U.S. stores.
The program, which Wal-Mart has been testing since 2004, will be rolled out nationwide to more than 3,300 stores by late summer, and it could help bring additional sales to the retailer's stores.
Mike Smith, Walmart.com's director of store integration, said the retailer found that nearly half of the customers from the trial spent an additional $60 in its stores when they went to pick up their orders.
While some of that additional spending was on planned purchases, like groceries, Smith said, about half of it was spent on unplanned items....
Article continued on the link above.
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