Posted on 06/30/2018 7:08:32 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
This month some important Walmart news did not get the attention it deserved. The news wasn't some flashy announcement about virtual reality or about some new service for busy Manhattanites. It was something much more subtle and much more substantive.
It was the hire of Valerie Casey. Google "Valerie Casey" even today and only two listings make mention of her newfound connection with Walmart on the first page of the returned search results. This amount of attention is unjustifiably slight. Let this piece then serve as the hire's coming out party.
Shrewdly, Walmart has made Valerie Casey, formerly of Frog, Ideo, and Pentagram, its new Head of Design. She will be charged with leading Walmart into the future and ensuring that all its products and services, from websites to employee and consumer apps, will work in cohesion and from a singular experience design point of view.
"What's the big whup?" you might ask.
The big whup is that this announcement clearly shows that Walmart has jumped feet first into the waters of next generation retailing. Under Doug McMillon's bold leadership, Walmart here again is taking one of the most essential steps to long-term success for any legacy bricks-and-mortar retailer -- specifically, redefining how it thinks of the word "Product."
Instead of doing what many retailers do, like staffing de facto "Product" heads within owned brand development, store operations, e-commerce, etc. and then leaving them to collaborate inside complex organizations with competing priorities, Walmart rightly understands that retailing has become so complex that all these aforementioned roles now need their own steward to ensure alignment....
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
I go to Walmart about 4 times a year. However, I have a friend that tells me their on line ordering is at least as good as Amazon. Amazon definitely could use more competition.
Walmart sends text messages when you order. Amazon does not.
I order more from Amazon than Walmart.
Concept = Good Plan/couldn’t hurt
Execution = Everything
Time will tell.
Seeing “Manhattanites” was a turn off, then Googling her name like the article suggested shows she’s a climate change greenie. Go to her website http://www.valcasey.com/ and it smells of narcissism.
She’s a die hard lefty, she may be good for Walmart in lefty land, but not for America.
The phographs at people of Wal-Mart depict folks an order of magnitude more together than the management at Bentonville.
Amazon’s website is a cut Above Walmart’s. Uniform descriptions of products, better product searches and customer reviews. But when Amazon ships via USPS to our neck of the woods things become inconvient. We have cluster boxes which means orders are not delivered to our home. If an order doesn’t fit in the cluster box, it ends up back at the Post Office. There is no way on the Amazon website to specify home delivery via UPS or FedEx. I’ll start my search on Amazon as this article states but then look elsewhere for a site with better shipping options.
WalMart has a hub and spoke distribution network that is second to none, a global supply chain management process, and created VMI, push-pull, and the IT backend that all retailers now rely on. Walmart has the largest IT infrastructure of any private company in the world.
They can do pretty much anything they decide to do.
Amazon does but, you must turn that feature on.
I use the Walmart app for the savings catcher (scan receipt, you get the $ difference for competitors advertised price). it amounts to a few dollars a month depending what you buy, shrewd move to try and keep people from going elsewhere. I still shop at multiple stores. the app can tell you what aisle something is in which is great since Walmart moves everything around as soon as you get familiar.
they did a big remodel at the 2 stores I go to, trying to make the store look less like a Walmart. the produce and meat depts are an improvement. in the aisles they changed groupings and I haven’t decided if it’s any better since I am still trying to find things.
They need to improve the way you determine if something is actually at your store, etc. also, products are not correctly represented. I bought a set of hubcaps that were not as described or pictured. Amazon has total control over their online product displays, whereas Walmart (I believe) has product from multiple online feeds, just like places like Sears. So their online selling is populated by their stuff plus other online sellers.
Amazon has a specific spreadsheet-type data feed to fill out so everything is the same. plus if something is a consistent seller they will move to warehouse it for faster shipping.
Walmart. “They can do pretty much anything they decide to do.”
True. I wish Walmart would open up K-12 schools across America.
We do most of our grocery shopping at Walmart and I pick up “odds and ends” there. Their on-line ordering is decent and is convenient for items we might want that aren’t stocked.
I hate too many emails but Walmart also unsubscribes you when you click the link for doing so. If it were only that easy to get rid of all the political emails after one has donated a time or two.... they add up to over 35 a day now but my spam filter keeps the inbox relatively clean.
I’ve heard that clicking that unsubscribe link only confirms to the spammer that your email address is valid, so I never do that.
Haven't found it at Wally yet.
Amazon, either.
Will one of you please make my day?!
Having Walmart’s again largely free online delivery available as yet another option helped me to give up my Amazon Prime membership without any real pain.
Amazon’s dynamic pricing meant that their prime option was generally just a hair cheaper, if that, than other alternatives. The big Prime difference has been the convenience of stuff showing up fast at your door. That often meant I got things pronto that I didn’t need so fast.
Anyway, I can live waiting a tad longer for stuff if it means not feeding the Bezos beast. I also probably save a few bucks on the year.
I lived on Amazon Prime delivery for years. Gave it up a few months ago and found there were enough options out there so I don’t really miss it.
Our Prime membership is up for renewal in September. I’m seriously considering dropping it. We watch none of their movies, we only have Prime to ensure 2 day delivery. But on more than 1 occasion, an in stock item has taken 3 or even 4 days to arrive. What’s the point of paying for the service if they don’t meet their advertised 2 day delivery?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.