I’ve been thinking about ordering stuff from Walmart.com for IN STORE PICKUP TODAY items for a while now but never actually pulled the trigger. Seemed easier to just goto the store and pick the items up myself.
However, for some reason some of the Items listed on Walmart.com are much cheaper than the Items in the store, For example, the Battery Powered Chain Saw I purchased today from Walmart was tagged for $128.00 at the store, while online it was listed for $115.
I’ve read bad reviews about Walmart.com In Store Pickups, for example how long it took to process — one guy reported that it took up to 8 hours before they had his order ready, and once the customer finally arrived at they store to pick up the item, they had to find a sales associate to fetch their item, etc. Which made me very hesitant. I really don’t have patience, and don’t want to wait around all day for an item when I can just go pick it up now, and the $10-20 savings really isn’t worth the wait, hassle, or annoyance.
I decided today to go ahead and order online.
I’ve been needing an okay chainsaw for a while now to do light work around the yard. I live out in the country and trees grow rapidly and its hard to keep them maintained. I bought a Poulan Pro Gas Powered Chainsaw a few years ago, but I’ve only been able to get it to start once for a few minutes, and ever since then it hasn’t wanted to start. Plus, the way you start the modern gas powered chainsaws is damned annoying. You have to turn them on, prime them, pull the choke half way, pull the starter rope 5 times, pull the choke full pull 5 the rope more times, and hope it starts. It’s just stupid.
I was at Walmart the other day and saw this Black and Decker 20volt Battery Powered Chainsaw. I never even imagined that they made battery powered chain saws. Black and Decker is a very good brand, and I use many of their tools which seem durable. I went home and studied the chainsaw and every single one of the reviews said that it was very good.
So This morning I decided to buy it from Walmart.com for IN STORE PICKUP. There are several Walmart Super Centers around me and each of them carried the chainsaw and had it in stock. I picked one store, decided to pay with Paypal Credit (another nice way to pay online for Walmart items), and within seconds I received an order confirmation.
I ordered at 8:40AM, and Got an email and text alert at 9:13am stating that my order was ready to pick up, between 10am and 10pm. WOW! Super fast.
I got to the Walmart a little after 10am, and downloaded the Walmart.com app to my phone because the email said I had to print off the invoice, or just show the invoice on my phone. I figured the app would be the easiest.
I assumed that I would have to go to the back of the store where the Walmart.com Instore items are picked up. I think they used to call this area Layaway and Site To Store, I think they just call this place “In Store Pickup” now — clever, I know.
But as I logged into the app, i noticed a big yellow button that said “Check In” and it gave a description along the lines of “Notify an Associate that you are here to pick up item so they can prepare order and have it waiting for you”.. which was pretty cool. I had some shopping to do, so I hit check in, and spent a few minutes doing that to give the walmart people a chance to get stuff ready, and by the time i arrived in the back of the store there were two associates waiting for me with my item. I just showed them the order on my phone, my photo ID, and I was on my way.
Super fast and easy. Nearly every review I’ve read for Walmart.com In Store Pickups had been wrong, or maybe I just got super lucky.
The entire process was fast, and absolutely hassle free. I’ll be using this method alot more in the future, especially if I can save a few bucks.
