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The stores in our town are carrying fewer and fewer items. Our super Wal-Mart even suggests buying it online. I got tired of Amazon and buy very little because they take too long to ship anymore unless you submit to the $99.00 club thing and they are closing the warehouse in our state putting a lot of workers out of work. I am using Wal-Mart combined with Vita Cost to purchase most of what I was getting from Amazon and Sierra Trading Post for clothing/shoes. I added DrugStore.com to the mix this week. It just seems that Amazon isn't as interested in doing business as the others.
This. I shop online for much of my stuff, but I never buy clothes online. It's too much guesswork trying to figure out the right size. I also rarely shop on Amazon. They're always pushing that Prime thing, and when I was a Prime member, the items that qualified for the so called "free" shipping cost more than items from third party sellers that charged for shipping! I usually buy online at ebay. It's a lot easier than it used to be, and the sellers are also much more reliable. I buy my used books on Abe Books, and I go to various other websites for other things. But my go to is ebay. Ironically, when I'm looking for something to buy online, I always go to Amazon first, read the reviews, and if the reviews are good, I'll price compare between it and ebay. 90+% of the time ebay beats it and I'll buy from there.
I used to buy occasionally from the online Walmart site. Then, one day about 18 months ago, I was buying a $20.00 item on the site and, when I was going through the checkout process, I saw a $1,800.00 computer in my shopping cart. Yikes! The ship-to name was very similar to mine but the ship-to address was in Oregon (I'm in Texas).
I deleted the computer from my shopping basket immediately because I didnt know if the scammer who put it there might be working on getting access to my credit card. Then I called Walmart. The first rep informed me that, six months prior, someone else had tried to buy a different computer through my account. Fortunately, my credit card didnt have enough available $$$ to fund the purchase. The email address used in that transaction was similar to mine...the only difference was that the letters "er" were added right before the @ sign.
The rep made it very clear that she didnt have time to deal with my concern. When I insisted I wanted more info, she transferred me to the "bookkeeping" dept . And the bookkeeping rep was even less interested in discussing the two frauds. She suggested that I contact the police departments in both my city and in the Oregon city.
No one at Walmart would give me the ship-to address of the failed attempted purchase. One rep told me only that the ship-to address was in New Jersey. Because of their indifference, I closed my Walmart.com account immediately.
I believe that this happens a lot at Walmart.com and they just dont want the publicity.
By the way, I did contact both the police dept in my city and in the Oregon city. My local police dept did nothing. The Oregon police dept told me that they couldnt take any action because no crime had actually been committed (since I caught the transaction while it was still in my shopping basket). And, of course, I had no ship-to info for the purchase that failed because my credit card didnt have a large enough balance.
One last thing. I was so angry that I decided to search for info on the Oregon ship-to address. I went to the Oregon county property tax site and found the name of the owner of that house. I then googled her name and found her obituary. She had died a year earlier and left three sons -- one of them is a realtor and I was able to get his business phone number. I called him and told him what had happened. He was genuinely shocked and told me that his niece was living in his deceased mother's house. He also said that she had recently taken up with a young man of questionable character. We had several subsequent phone discussions and, in the last one, he advised me that he and his brothers (one is the girl's father) had evicted her from the house. I dont know what else may have happened.
Amazon Prime - mostly for selection and 2-day delivery. I seldom price shop.
I don't return items even if I stupidly ordered the wrong thing.
I shop local for food, booze, bicycles.
I eat at local non-chain restaurants.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AnywhereElse
The stores in our town are carrying fewer and fewer items. Our super Wal-Mart even suggests buying it online. I got tired of Amazon and buy very little because they take too long to ship anymore unless you submit to the $99.00 club thing and they are closing the warehouse in our state putting a lot of workers out of work. I am using Wal-Mart combined with Vita Cost to purchase most of what I was getting from Amazon and Sierra Trading Post for clothing/shoes. I added DrugStore.com to the mix this week. It just seems that Amazon isn't as interested in doing business as the others.
We have an order out now that will be delivered tomorrow (Sunday) from Amazon. That $99 is more than reasonable/cost effective when you use them a lot, because you save that much on shipping just from Christmas purchases, and everything gets here fast. I also use Ebay some for new items, but only when the shipping is free, and for those I sometimes have to wait a week.
Yes; I do a lot of necessities on line more and more. I even keep a item listed with who to buy from at good price on computer. I have found direct dealing often gets me item faster than going thru amazon prime with companies they list because of faster shipping and note that. I hate shopping so it works well for me. Food the only thing I prefer to see before buying really.
Personally, I prefer bricks and mortar because I like to browse, I like to see the item, I like instant gratification, etc. etc.. But, I live in a small town and the nearest big town is 45 mins drive and the nearest city is 90 mins drive. So online shopping is far more practical than a long drive.
In addition, on-line shopping is more practical for those hard to get items.
I buy almost everything online now. Even some of the grocery staples & dry goods. I'm thinking about dumping my energy stocks and loading up on AMZN so I can get a rebate as the stock climbs.
ETA: And I just did it.
Last edited by swagger; 01-26-2015 at 11:18 AM..
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I am using Wal-Mart combined with Vita Cost to purchase most of what I was getting from Amazon and Sierra Trading Post for clothing/shoes. I added DrugStore.com to the mix this week. It just seems that Amazon isn't as interested in doing business as the others.
