Walmart.com A Review

Short Summary

No way if you live in L.A.

Sometimes it's not on Ebay or Newegg. You look online and you can't find it at a reasonable price anywhere but Walmart. In Los Angeles Target is king, but Walmart was able to sneak into Downtown L.A. by pretending to be a supermarket. So I can give Walmart.com a shot and pick up my order after a short drive downtown? I wish it were that easy.

A few months ago, I bought a six pack of picture frames from Walmart.com. It was a great deal and I was excited to give Walmart a chance earn my business. A few days passed and I received the email that my order was ready for pick up. I wasn't able to make it there immediately, but I got there a couple of days later. I waited in line and they took my info and looked for my order near the counter. It wasn't there. They looked for it in the back. It wasn't there. They took my phone number and promised to call me the next day with more information.

The next day when they didn't get around to calling me, I called them and they looked for it again. It wasn't there. Tracking said the order was delivered. Their email said the order was ready for pick up. They told me they couldn't do anything for me and I had to call Walmart.com.

Walmart.com was really sorry about losing my order. And they wanted to make it up to me by taking my money for a second time and starting the whole process over. I said how about you refund my money and then I'll place another order. They said it'll take seven days to process my refund. So they could take my money immediately but I had to wait seven days to get my money back. I didn't know that shopping at Walmart.com means getting in the business of short term interest free lending. I argued with the CSR until he immediately refunded my money. I tried again and this time everything worked out. Happy ending right? Walmart.com wasn't so bad.

Now I need a small set of shelves and Walmart.com has the best price. I order them up and they ship. I get a deal alert for a set of Minions mini figures. That sounds like something my niece would like and I've already got an order pending with Walmart.com. Why not order them too and pick them up at the same time?

FedEx and UPS tracking says my orders are in L.A. and ready to be delivered. Fedex says my Minions have been delivered. I'm just waiting for the email that says they're ready for pick up. And my other order?

"The street number is incorrect. This may delay delivery. We're attempting to update the address."

What?! Walmart didn't give UPS the correct address to their own store. I live chat with Walmart.com and they escalate the issue to their Shipping Department. They give me two choices cancel my order and wait seven days for a refund or call the store.

I call the store. I verify the address and I verify that they are still receiving deliveries from UPS. Somehow my order never arrives in their store.

Now UPS has a nifty option where a receiver can alter or correct a mistaken shipping address. I click on that but because I'm not the receiver Neighborhood Market #3086 is I can't correct Walmart.com's mistake. I call Walmart.com and they connect me with UPS and they ask me for a correct address. I give them what I found on the internet and the address is the same. Finally UPS tracking status changes.

"A delivery change for this package is in progress. / We've rescheduled this delivery."

Then soon enough.

"The street number is incorrect. This may delay delivery. We're attempting to update the address / The address has been corrected. The delivery has been rescheduled."

So much for that right? I call Walmart.com and now they give me an option to ship the order directly to me. Of course they expect me to order it again and pay for it again. I don't care how big Walmart is only an idiot would pay for an item twice before receiving it once. I'll take my earlier option and cancel both my orders.

Shopping online is so easy. I'm so unfamiliar with this sort of trouble. I can't say that Newegg or Target would expect me to pay them twice before receiving an item once, but that's only because they've never put me in that position. Walmart may be the world's biggest retailer and people may love shopping at Walmart, but Walmart.com isn't worth the trouble I'd rather shop at eBay.