To go along with hideous levels of inflation, Walmart gives “Walmart+” to employees instead of a cost of living adjustment.

-/r/Walmart post about DoorDash contracting to deliver Walmart+ orders.

To go along with hideous levels of inflation, Walmart gives “Walmart+” to employees instead of a cost of living adjustment.

The employees at the local Walmart all had to attend a meeting today where it was stated that all Walmart employees get “free” Walmart+, which basically is free delivery of any size order to your house and 5 cents off per gallon of gasoline at Walmart or Murphy gas stations.

I guess it’s not nothing, but Walmart says that the Internal Revenue Code causes the “fair market value” of the Walmart+ subscription to be reported as taxable income.

So congratulations. Instead of a raise you got another way to spend money at Walmart, and you owe the government another $15-20 when you file your taxes next year.

Normally, it’s hard to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I doubt they’d be doing this unless they figured it benefited them more than you.

We’re already so tethered to Walmart at this point, it’s hard to shop anywhere else. Between the discount card (which works on some groceries, but not most) and the 5% back on my Capital One Walmart card for doing online orders, there’s hardly a point to shopping my groceries myself anymore, so I use the store pickup already.

The upside of having Walmart+ is marginal. I already know from Online Grocery Pickup employees talking about it that DoorDash drivers hate Walmart+ (verifiable through this article too) and they complain that they have to put groceries back that they’ve already picked and cancel the customer’s order all the time. Walmart probably pays more to have that happen than if they kicked a few more bucks to the drivers.

Walmart for their part says that a tip after some guy got $4 from them to deliver tons of groceries and a 50 pound bag of dog food up three flights of stairs is “optional”.

I just don’t see myself using it often unless I’m laid up in bed with the flu and absolutely cannot go out and pickup my own groceries, have an order for pickup that does not meet the $35 free pickup minimum and would normally be charged a $5.99 convenience fee (I’m there every day anyway, so this DOES happen), or an at Murphy filling up my gas tank and want to use the 5 cents a gallon off (in addition to my credit card, where gas always has 5% back).

The upside for an ethical person with Walmart+ is low. Ethics dictates a sizeable tip. Most Walmart customers are terrible people who don’t tip well, like the folks who already complain that their food arrived cold from restaurants with DoorDash. So the only ethical thing is tip or don’t use it.

With gas prices through the roof lately, I can’t imagine that Walmart+ isn’t on its last leg already.

If nobody wanted to make $4-5 taking a grocery order when gas cost $3 a gallon, who wants to do it with gas at $4.30 a gallon?

The whole thing is obviously in a death spiral because some manager at Walmart bought into this gig economy bullshit instead of paying a professional delivery driver in a Walmart truck to make the rounds (like Amazon Prime does).

And when we say “gig”, it’s a nice way of saying “slave”. People who work inside the store, for Walmart, make at least $17 an hour without having to drive all over the city not getting tips. They also don’t have to pay the employer share of social taxes at the end of the year.

The “app economy” has created a permanent underclass that cannot afford childcare (leading to Walmart warning that it won’t release orders to people with young children in the car) and do not make the legal minimum wage (which is $15 an hour in my state).

I’ve complained about these apps before, and how it’s dangerous for these “gig workers” from DoorDash to have their kids in the car.

Very recently, in the city I live in, a guy got into a running car and pointed a loaded handgun at a 16 year old in the back seat. A week before that, a guy stole a running vehicle and then ditched it a few miles later with some toddlers in it.

And you know how these app companies are. “We’re just a facilitator! You can’t sue us!”.

This is what comes out of San Francisco, folks. The most illiberal non-progressive system imaginable.

A return to plantations working slaves for subsistence living standards.

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……”