Update on my walmart food deal

Ok, I went to Walmart, ordered my 13 cases of 13oz cans of Friskies for the month.

I needed to call to see if the order was in, but no one ever picked up in the pet food dept. And they kept putting me through to electronics. UGH. Finally, I had to call the store manager and she said she would find out and call me back. Four hours later, no call. Finally got a girl, who knows what department by then, who did call me and say, yes, order is in.

Went to pick it up and it was all wrong.....small cans and wrong flavor.

Took the huge cart back to pet food dept, saw new manager. He said he would re order. OK fine.

Now he says, well Friskies is not getting the product to the warehouse. It has been 10 days. And he has to reorder every day just to get stock in for the store. Bla, Bla, Bla...

Stopped at one of the pet store chains to see if they are having the same prob, of course not. The manager said they will match Walmarts price of .70 a can.

So I am now getting it there. I can park at the door, it is half as far as Walmart, and someone always answers the phone!! What a novel idea. Customer Service.

Just to be nice, I kept trying to call Walmart to cancel this order. No one answered the phone.

Totally disgusted.

I have said for many years that it's not hard to compete with Wal-Mart. Give good service, carry quality items consistently, and you can even charge a good deal more than Wal-Mart.

Most people don't know that once a contractor wins a bid at Wal-Mart, they have to tell the purchasing department how they are going to lower the cost of the item at least 10% at the annual review, and that happens every year.

(By the way, Toyota has the same purchasing policy. I assume it's pretty widespread. This is why stuff you bought last week at Wal-Mart is no longer there.)

This is what worries me about placing an order thru Wal-Mart..Granted Im not going to be ordering bulk items like that but I want to buy my girls guitars for Christmas I have to get them thru the Site to Store thing online. They have really cute kid sized Tinkerbell and Disney Princess guitars and since they always want to play BFs we are going to get them their own and a book on how to teach yourself how to play the guitar and we are all going to learn how to play together. But Im worried one if I order site to store if Im going to know when it gets there and if I dont get there right that day if they will put it out on the shelves and then Ill be up a creek without a paddle. I always get really nervous about buying stuff online theres no guarentee its going to be right. Plus...I know how my local WalMarts customer service is..Non existant, your lucky if you can find an employee for help thru out the whole store let alone an employee who knows what in the heck your talking about.

Sorry you had such a rotten time dealing with Walmart (I definitely have nothing positive to say about their customer service at the stores here in town!)

I'm glad you found a pet store that was closer to you and that was willing to match the price! Sounds like things worked out better for you in the end and you'll save on gas money too

The thing that flips me out is the phone thing....."just call us and we will tell you if it's in". Oh sure, I spent 4 hours trying to get someone to answer.

I will never order anything there again. I only have so much time on this earth and I won't spend another second of it on hold or talking to electronics!!

Originally Posted by 3CatsN1Dog

This is what worries me about placing an order thru Wal-Mart..Granted Im not going to be ordering bulk items like that but I want to buy my girls guitars for Christmas I have to get them thru the Site to Store thing online. They have really cute kid sized Tinkerbell and Disney Princess guitars and since they always want to play BFs we are going to get them their own and a book on how to teach yourself how to play the guitar and we are all going to learn how to play together. But Im worried one if I order site to store if Im going to know when it gets there and if I dont get there right that day if they will put it out on the shelves and then Ill be up a creek without a paddle. I always get really nervous about buying stuff online theres no guarentee its going to be right. Plus...I know how my local WalMarts customer service is..Non existant, your lucky if you can find an employee for help thru out the whole store let alone an employee who knows what in the heck your talking about.

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Just a suggestions, you may want to look at an actual music companies website to see about getting their guitars. The only bad thing about the cheaper kiddie instruments is they are poor quality and they can in some cases be more difficult to learn on. Plus the fact that music companies sell better quality ones will make it more likely that they will be able to tune correctly and last longer than the cheap sweat shop made ones!

Originally Posted by farleyv

Ok, I went to Walmart, ordered my 13 cases of 13oz cans of Friskies for the month.

I needed to call to see if the order was in, but no one ever picked up in the pet food dept. And they kept putting me through to electronics. UGH. Finally, I had to call the store manager and she said she would find out and call me back. Four hours later, no call. Finally got a girl, who knows what department by then, who did call me and say, yes, order is in.

Went to pick it up and it was all wrong.....small cans and wrong flavor.

Took the huge cart back to pet food dept, saw new manager. He said he would re order. OK fine.

Now he says, well Friskies is not getting the product to the warehouse. It has been 10 days. And he has to reorder every day just to get stock in for the store. Bla, Bla, Bla...

Stopped at one of the pet store chains to see if they are having the same prob, of course not. The manager said they will match Walmarts price of .70 a can.

So I am now getting it there. I can park at the door, it is half as far as Walmart, and someone always answers the phone!! What a novel idea. Customer Service.

Just to be nice, I kept trying to call Walmart to cancel this order. No one answered the phone.

Totally disgusted.

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And this is why we have stopped shopping at walmart! I hate it! We will go if we absolutely have to, but most of the time we go to Target or the mall and Food City and Kroger for our food!

Originally Posted by capt_jordi

Just a suggestions, you may want to look at an actual music companies website to see about getting their guitars. The only bad thing about the cheaper kiddie instruments is they are poor quality and they can in some cases be more difficult to learn on. Plus the fact that music companies sell better quality ones will make it more likely that they will be able to tune correctly and last longer than the cheap sweat shop made ones!

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The main reason we are getting them the cheap kiddie ones is because they are only 6 and 7 and we arent sure how long their interest in the guitar is going to last, if they want to keep learning and playing then we will eventually get them better quality ones but for now we dont want to end up spending $400 on guitars (we priced ones that we really really wanted to get) and then in a month it be a waste of money. These kiddie ones are only $35 each so I wont feel bad if they decide then they dont want to keep playing. Im not that interested in playing either but I will learn with them because then it makes it more fun. BF already kinda knows how to play so he gets to be the instructor lol.

Originally Posted by 3CatsN1Dog

The main reason we are getting them the cheap kiddie ones is because they are only 6 and 7 and we arent sure how long their interest in the guitar is going to last, if they want to keep learning and playing then we will eventually get them better quality ones but for now we dont want to end up spending $400 on guitars (we priced ones that we really really wanted to get) and then in a month it be a waste of money. These kiddie ones are only $35 each so I wont feel bad if they decide then they dont want to keep playing. Im not that interested in playing either but I will learn with them because then it makes it more fun. BF already kinda knows how to play so he gets to be the instructor lol.

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True! Kids that young seem to either latch on or forget it 2 days! LOL! I went with a friend when she got a brand new guitar from a pawn shop for $30! One of those random little finds!

It seems most customers don't care if the employees ignore them, that is why Walmart flourishes! If customers cared, they would be changing their policies. Instead of redesigning their stores to make it easier to get around(which is nice), they should be working on customer service!

You should find out the regional mangers phone number and complain, if that doesn't work, go up further....just if you want to...

That is just awful about the phone not being answered.With a chain as large as Walmart you would think that there would be a customer service dept. I don't go to the one around here, but that store is a godsend in the Catskills where my family lives. When you have to i 1/2 hour to get to more than the local small markets a big place like Walmart is great.

Glad you have a nice pet shop.

Walmart is not known for it's customer service, or being able to find a staff member in the store that knows how to help you.

Last year I was looking for a simple wall calendar. Nothing fancy, just a wall calendar. I didn't even care what pictures were on it. I couldn't find them at Walmart so I asked a staff member that I saw in the stationary area. He said "I don't know where they are." and went back to doing what he was doing. I asked if he could please go and check with another staff member. I waited and after 20 minutes he comes back and says "I asked and then we checked with the manager. The manager says we do have calendars, but no one knows where they are."

Talk about helpful!

As I was going through the check-out, what do I see sitting at the end of the checkout stands? Yes! Calendars....free calendars with pictures of dogs promoting their pet department.

My advice is to buy your cat food at a grocery store or an actual pet store.

When Chynna was with me, I would order cases of canned cat food from Safeway.

You might also try Costco for your cases of cat food.

I have absolutely nothing positive to say about WalMart. Whatsoever.

Thanks for all your horror stories. We do our food shopping there. The local food chain is sometimes twice as high.

We don't have Costco around here and Target has no food.

I would try and take this further with the regional manager, but the aggravation factor is too high!

Originally Posted by farleyv

Thanks for all your horror stories. We do our food shopping there. The local food chain is sometimes twice as high.

We don't have Costco around here and Target has no food.

I would try and take this further with the regional manager, but the aggravation factor is too high!

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It may be aggravating, but thats why they get away with this treatment so often! People dont want to deal with them any longer so just forget about it! I would try to take it as far as you can, and make sure they know you are active on the internet and will write multiple reviews about your experience with this! And also the BBB! I'm ready to see walmart kicked down a few rungs on the ladder!

Originally Posted by Winchester

I have absolutely nothing positive to say about WalMart. Whatsoever.

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We shop at Bilo now, since it offers fuel perks and meat is much cheaper, and fresher. It also is only 1 mile down the street, versus two Wal Marts ~8 miles in two directions. WM experiences were always terrible when we'd go and the employees are always miserable towards customers.

We used the water machines to fill water jugs for our fish tank when we lived with the in laws (their well water has a terrible pH for fish survival). We called to see if the machines were working, they put us on hold and then said yes (record time walking back there ). We got there and neither machine worked. Someone else said "oh they haven't worked for days." We asked customer service if they could contact anyone who could fix them or let us know if they knew when they'd be in service and they got snippy with us and told us to just buy jugs of water instead of refills. Ummm well new jugs are 3x as much as refills. Just one of the many icky experiences there. I'm on a roll lately with reviewing companies on directory and review sites.

Originally Posted by Winchester

I have absolutely nothing positive to say about WalMart. Whatsoever.

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Then how about this:

Just because Wal-Mart exists, the average American family can live about $3,000 cheaper, even if they never step in a Wal-Mart store.

We see it around here. Whatever the price of gas is at the Murphy (Wal-Mart) station, it is at all the stations within sight of it. Get outside that circle, and gas can be as much as 10 cents per gallon higher.

Originally Posted by Tara & Rob

We shop at Bilo now, since it offers fuel perks and meat is much cheaper, and fresher.

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I have a hard time imagining how the meat could be fresher than at Wal-Mart. When I was delivering frozen and refrigerated food for them, the meat we delivered to the stores was in the fields (or feedlots) 3 days ago.

But I HAVE seen little stores that bought their own cattle and had them processed nearby, so I know it can happen.

We do save a good deal of money on food. And in the end, that is the most important reason to shop at a store. But it almost seems like the staff is trained "not" to give good service. I can't imagine so much lousy service is just a coincidence. I know that's a bizzare statement....but we see the proof everyday.

I was there once and a lady was looking for something on one of the shelves. As associate passed her and the lady said "excuse me" obviously needing help finding something. The worker kept walking. At least three times she repeated it and the person never looked back. Even the little kid that was with her, started saying "excuse me". The lady turned to me and said "I should have gotten her name". We agreed the CS was terrible.

I may pursue this. But you know there are a lot of very weird people out there. This pet food manager has my number and would hate to be retalliated against. Hey, stranger things have happened.

Originally Posted by mrblanche

Then how about this:

Just because Wal-Mart exists, the average American family can live about $3,000 cheaper, even if they never step in a Wal-Mart store.

We see it around here. Whatever the price of gas is at the Murphy (Wal-Mart) station, it is at all the stations within sight of it. Get outside that circle, and gas can be as much as 10 cents per gallon higher.

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Our stores are filthy (both of them). The clerks, all of them, lick their fingers before opening the bags. One clerk (and that was the absolute last straw for me) had one heckuva cold....she was snotting around, coughing, and bringing up god only knows what. And she was still working. And she licked her fingers to open the bag! Now, I don't know about you, but I can't handle it. I'm not a germophobe by any means. But wrong is wrong. And despite repeated comments to the Customer Service dept (who really doesn't give a rodent's patootie about much of anything) and several letters to Wal Mart corporate (who cares even less), it still continued. (And before anybody tells me that the sick employee has to work, too, I get that. I do. Those people can't afford to take a day off for any reason.)

Very few of the employees actually know how to help anybody. When I shopped there, I was better off finding something on my own than trying to get any help from anybody.

Despite the fact that there are 20+ check-out lanes at the local WM, at any given time, 2 or 3 may be open. Long lines, really long lines. Where the heck is everybody?

I was there one morning at 7:30 for paper supplies for a luncheon at work (no, I don't shop there for myself, but I do what my boss tells me to do for work). One lane open, so I put my paper plates and such on the belt. Two cashiers are chatting. They see me, but ignore me. Finally, I asked them to please ring me up as I was supposed to be to work in 15 minutes. After a nasty look, the cashier threw my stuff into a bag, gave me my change, turned around and walked away.

Why didn't I go to Customer Service? Why bother? Do they really care? Nope.

And that gas price difference is not really true around here. Not at all.

So, I don't care if the average family saves $3,000 just b/c a WM opens in the area. I don't like the stores and won't shop there. I'd rather spend the extra money and get decent service than deal with people like that. No, I have nothing good to say about WalMart.

We shop at our local Giant store for most of our items. We'll go to Target when there's a good sale going on. Or if we have to pick up a prescription and see something on sale, we'll pick it up, too. And we have a PetSmart for cat supplies.