The dumbest feature of Walmart+ and a banking app joke.

I’m copying this from Techrights IRC, mostly.

Walmart+ is basically Walmart’s solution to Amazon Prime. If you’re going to exclusively shop at Walmart, it’s not really a bad idea. For $98 a year, you get unlimited free delivery of any order size (which saves gas, which is EXPENSIVE), and you get 5 cents a gallon off at Murphy or Walmart gas stations (which can be nice since it stacks on top of your credit card rewards. I get 5% back at gas stations already).

But the dumbest feature is the awkward “scan and go”.

It does not work like Amazon’s stores where you just scan things with your phone and then walk out.

You scan things with your phone, and then you stop at a self-checkout, show it your phone, bag the things, weigh the stuff you couldn’t scan, and then pay.

It saves…no time at all, and requires an app! It’s worse than just using the self-checkout.

In just as many ways as Walmart is trying to make a better shopping experience for people who will subscribe, they seem to be trying to make a shittier experience to drive people to pay money to make the bad experience go away. Which doesn’t seem to be a viable long-term strategy in building brand loyalty to me, but hey…..

They’ve sacked cashiers. They let lines for self-check wrap around the store while your food is melting. They scarcely even seem to bother stocking or straightening up shelves.

About the only consistent thing they have done is raise the prices if you can even find the items you came in for. Even then, you’ll need the app because they can’t be bothered to make sure the price on the shelf is correct, which violates the truth in pricing laws in my state, but hey….

I also cracked wise about banks that close branches and tell you to use apps.

Banks: It’s easier with an app. Also, the app: “Here’s 30 tracking libraries and a weird error message from the server mentioning something about JAVA exceptions.”

Also the bank: Fires everyone.

Based.

-Me

Some teller at the bank told me it’s easier to deposit a check with an app. I says to the guy, I says…. “You realize you’re recommending that I help put you out of a job with an app that barely works, right?”

He stares blankly for a second. “Corporate makes us say this.”

Back to Walmart+.

It’s clear to me that everyone pays higher prices for groceries to subsidize this Walmart+ thing. Aldi hasn’t raised prices this much, and I’ll bet you it’s because they don’t run their own pickup and delivery. They outsource it to Instacart. If the customer wants delivery or pickup from Aldi, it’s higher prices than the shelf.

But with Walmart, they charge the same price to everyone, and there’s no way $98 a year is the full cost of a customer clicking “Now I want ice cream.”. “Now I want one package of underwear.” “Now I want exactly one bottle of rum.”. And each time, a person has to show up with it. “For Free……”