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posted by martyb on Thursday August 24 2017, @04:47AM   Printer-friendly
from the ask-and-ye-shall-receive...-with-a-bill dept.

Walmart has partnered with Google, allowing items to be bought online through Google Express. Google has also gotten rid of the annual membership fee for the service, instead offering free shipping for orders above a minimum amount (dependent on the store):

With an eye on the future of online retailing, Walmart and Google are teaming up to go after rival Amazon in a play that also targets the growing market for voice-activated shopping. Starting next month, Walmart customers will be able to access hundreds of thousands of products from the company's shelves — everything from dish washing soap to dining tables — via the online retailing service Google Express. Until now, Walmart's enormous inventory was available online only through the company's own website.

Walmart customers will be able to place an order by simply saying it out loud, using either the Google Assistant app or the voice-activated speaker Google Home. Voice-enabled shopping is still in its infancy, but analysts say it is a rapidly growing piece of the pie. "When it comes to voice shopping, we want to make it as easy as possible for our customers. That's why it makes sense for us to team up with Google," Marc Lore, the president and CEO of Walmart U.S. eCommerce, writes in a blog post today.

Also on Wednesday, Google announced that it was getting rid of a $95 annual membership fee for Express and would offer free delivery on orders above a minimum.

The move is seen as a response to Amazon and Alexa voice ordering.

Google Express was launched in 2013.

Previously: Walmart Kills Amazon Prime-like Service, Expands Free Shipping


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Walmart Kills Amazon Prime-like Service, Expands Free Shipping 10 comments

Walmart is canning a premium online ordering service and expanding its free shipping on various items instead:

Walmart announced free two-day shipping to home and stores on more than two million items, without a membership fee. The new offer is available starting at 8 a.m. EST today. With this announcement, Walmart has also lowered the minimum purchase required for free shipping to home to $35, from $50. Items being shipped to stores continue to have no price threshold.*

[...] Walmart's free two-day shipping will be available on the items customers shop the most, including household essentials such as baby necessities, pet products, food, like cereal and peanut butter, cleaning supplies and beauty favorites, as well as top electronics and toys.

[...] *Freight and marketplace are not included. Program is available in the contiguous United States.

Walmart recently bought Jet.com, an online e-commerce company with "an attractive brand with proven appeal, especially with Millennials, the first generation of true digital natives".

Meanwhile, Amazon is expanding its digital advertising business (before potential customers realize the scale of online ad fraud) and ordering the production of anime.


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by jasassin on Thursday August 24 2017, @05:03AM (6 children)

    by jasassin (3566) <jasassin@gmail.com> on Thursday August 24 2017, @05:03AM (#558319) Homepage Journal

    Free shipping is cool. Free shipping over a certain value sucks flaming meteorites! I wanted to get a fidget spinner, the website says free shipping on orders over $5.99. Gee, guess how much it was.. $5.99.

    You'll see this all over Amazon. They turned the free shipping offer into this scam that actually makes the website unable to give you the lowest price + shipping. Just another way to promote items and scam people.

    It pisses me off so bad I'm thinking about getting an amazon prime account and offering to purchase items for people for a nominal fee on craigslist, in the newspaper etc.

    Give me the cash. I order your items and call you to come pick them up.

    --
    jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
    • (Score: 2, Informative) by mattTheOne on Thursday August 24 2017, @05:18AM (2 children)

      by mattTheOne (1788) on Thursday August 24 2017, @05:18AM (#558321)

      Shame you didn't get grandfathered into the plan where the membership can be shared with several ppl. I'm sharing a friend's and havent paid for Amazon membership in 5+ years.

      They need to fix Google Express, it doesn't accept Frys promo codes so its almost useless for Frys sale items.

      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 24 2017, @05:39AM (1 child)

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday August 24 2017, @05:39AM (#558328) Journal

        From what I've seen of Fry's on SlickDeals, most of the good deals are "free store pickup" aka in-store only. Which means only a small portion of the country can get them:

        As of August 2014, Fry's Electronics operated 34 brick-and-mortar stores in nine U.S. states: California (17 stores); Texas (8); Arizona (2); Georgia (2); Illinois (1); Indiana (1); Nevada (1); Oregon (1); and Washington (1).

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        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @03:05PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @03:05PM (#558458)

          Stop making me miss Fry's.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 24 2017, @05:35AM (2 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday August 24 2017, @05:35AM (#558327) Journal

      Amazon allows third party sellers on the platform which are the source of most of the weird stuff you see like: $3.78 + $15.50 shipping. Theoretically this is a good thing since there are a wider variety of items for sale, but it can mean more junk to sort through.

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      • (Score: 2) by coolgopher on Thursday August 24 2017, @07:48AM (1 child)

        by coolgopher (1157) on Thursday August 24 2017, @07:48AM (#558367)

        As someone outside the US, Amazon became useless when they added all the third-party junk, because most don't ship internationally. Haven't bought anything from Amazon in years as a result.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:12AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @08:12AM (#558372)

          Internationally? Oh, I _wish_ they shipped internationally! They do not even ship to Alaska or Hawaii, like these states were foreign countries, or something. And don't get me started on shipping to Guam, which is about to be nuked. Do you think North Korea is going to charge for delivery?

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday August 24 2017, @05:23AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 24 2017, @05:23AM (#558323) Journal

    I'm not gonna place an order until Walmart ain't gonna deliver it using a drone from a blimp nearby [soylentnews.org].

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @05:30AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @05:30AM (#558326)

    Whenever I use Google Express, they assume it's ok to substitute shit for the stuff I actually ordered, unless I spend more time clicking through their slow-as-mud website. Can you not keep track of what's in stock? Thanks for prioritizing the retailer's convenience over the customer's.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @02:48PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @02:48PM (#558451)

      I think the retailers are Google's customers. so it's putting their customers' convenience first.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday August 24 2017, @05:46AM (3 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Thursday August 24 2017, @05:46AM (#558332) Homepage Journal

    I once lived in Owl's Head, Maine, near Rockland. There was a Walmart in Rockland, as well as a competing big-box store that had great selection but often my ex and I were the only shoppers in the store.

    That big-box store was one of a chain of 250 or so, mostly in the Northeast. It went bankrupt while we lived there. All 250 stores closed, all its employees lost their jobs.

    We asked a cashier what she would do for work. "I don't know, but I'm sure as Hell not working for Walmart".

    I haven't set foot in Walmart ever since its female employees lost their age discrimination suit.

    Recall that you can select whether a debit card is charged as debit or credit. The credit option costs the merchant significantly more. Walmart filed an antitrust lawsuit, which promised to reward all merchants, but Walmart settled and so is the only store where debit cards are only charged as debit.

    I'm afraid DuckDuckGo uses google as a back-end. Fuck America, I'll start searching with Yandex.

    Russia's all the rage these days, see.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
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