Ecommerce is booming for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., and here in Texas, we love our grocery pickup.
The Dallas Morning News just had a fantastic article about the popularity of the service, which Wal-Mart says is its biggest, most well-established market. Since 2015, Wal-Mart has expanded its grocery pickup in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to about 50 stores. Nationwide, it offers pickup at 500 stores and plans to add 600 more this year.
Some North Texas stores are fulfilling up to 900 orders a week for grocery pick-up, and the average for the region's stores is 500 to 600 grocery pickup orders per week, according to Jason Fogerty, Wal-Mart's Dallas area market coach for e-commerce.
I live about three hours south of DFW, and one of the two suburban Austin stores near my house started offering grocery pickup just over a year ago.
I didn't go back.
Why? I don't know, man…
I'm not a planner, I guess? It wasn't part of my routine? Grocery delivery and pick-up are gaining a lot of ground with time-strapped consumers, however. Fresh Direct's Devika Kumar said during a panel at CPMA last month that you've got to get consumers to try it twice, or even three times, to get them hooked.
It was time for me to try again, so I loaded up some produce in my shopping cart and set my pick-up for the next afternoon.
The pickup:
First of all, I screwed up. I went to the wrong store. I hadn't noticed that Wal-Mart automatically selected the closest store to my house as my default location. Oops. When I showed up to the wrong store for pickup, they were very friendly and said it's been happening periodically. The store I'd imagined myself picking up at was newer and fancier than the store they chose for me.
Once I got to the right store, I was really surprised at the staging area. Parking spots were covered (a primo choice here in blistering hot Texas), and there were a lot of them. The clerk who helped me was very friendly, and apologized that they were out of their “new customer” gift bags (what?!) and that I was marked in their system to receive one next time.
I asked her a bit about how busy they were while she loaded my groceries in my trunk. Apparently, they're seeing lots of repeat customers, and are busier than she expected them to be.
I even had a cute welcome note from my picker.
The produce:
I had only one substitution, and funny enough, it was the same substitution I had a year ago – instead of two pounds of loose Jazz apples, they gave me a 3-pound bag of them.
And while my order was beyond expectations last time, this time, I'd give them a B-. I'll call it a sophomore slump.
Issues that need to be addressed:
- They're selling “Champagne mangos” on the website, and delivering honey mangos in the order. Nope. Not ok. Champagne™ mangos are a brand and this needs to be fixed.
Y'all gotta fix this ASAP. - I ordered a “1-pound bag” of cherries for $3.28 on the site, and received 2lbs 6oz of cherries in a random weight pouch. From a customer standpoint, I won. I got $4.50 worth of cherries I didn't pay for. From a retailer standpoint – ouch.
- My bananas were GREEEEEEEEEEN. I didn't see anywhere I could specify what ripeness I wanted, but if I wanted to eat them today (and my 3-year-old was disappointed he could not) it's a problem. I also asked for 3 pounds and got 3.5. Bonus for me, not them.
- My pineapple was several days away from edible.
- Avocados were green and hard – at least three days from ready.
- Peaches were a mixed bag – three were hard and one was mushy.
The bottom line:
Would I go on the site and officially complain about the issues I found? Well, I don't know. One peach out of four? Is that really worth my time?
Green bananas, unripe pineapple? Is that really worth the hassle of complaining? How much do I have invested in Wal-Mart's grocery pickup? I didn't pay for the service. I didn't tip the clerk. (Is that even allowed?)
If I was a dedicated customer, I'd give them feedback and another shot, and I bet if I did, I'll get some kind of compensation for my time and hassle.
As it is, I'll probably just let it go.
Would my attitude be different if I got that same A+ experience I had last time? Probably. A retailer wants their online grocery customers to be happy.
They have much bigger baskets overall, and there's a lot of loyalty in this sector, and a lot of money to be made, too.