@thisnthat To be honest I see it as a means to encourage people to buy from them instead of Amazon who are the main competition as those with Prime get free delivery. I really doubt that the store will pay the employees much as they do zero hour contracts and get people in and then tell them to go home. Perhaps people will do it in a bid to show willing and hope that the store appreciates it, but the hours will not count I imagine towards more hours to get them any benefits. It ought to, but I doubt it will. I maybe cynical but I see it as Walmart exploiting their employees for their gain. However, I maybe wrong, but I overheard some employees on a bus once where a worker was called in to work and then told to go home when he got there because they didn't need him any longer. He paid his bus fare there and back and hadn't earned a dime from them. This is the reality of how the store operates.
If it is convinient to the employees I say why not but if it will be too much for them and not get paid well enough then they should really hire delivery people instead. If the company is only trying to benefit their own selfs by saving by not hiring separate employees then I think it shouldn't come about.
@Theo I'm sure that it would be like any other company that asks employees to deliver like Dominoe's Pizza for instance. When the removable sign goes on the car, the car is insured by whoever is doing the hiring. It's more of a liability issue than anything else. I mentioned Dominoes for a reason because only a few years ago the company had a 30 minute delivery guarantee. The guarantee no longer exists because a driver was in too much of a hurry and got into an accident. I do not remember the particulars but the ruling placed all of the fault upon Dominoes so whatever payouts had to be made were the responsibility of the company and very little if any fault placed upon the driver. Of course, the driver lost his job but that's another issue entirely. And, because it was a liability issue, the driver didn't recoup the cost of his vehicle so that's one caveat toward making deliveries using your own vehicle. I imagine to be fully insured the driver would have to put out the extra cash.
@preacherbob50 Another question to ask, is are you supposed to tip the delivery person seeing as it isn't really their job? I never got the hang of and probably never will with the tipping thing in the USA, but one wouldn't tip UPS or DHL as that's their full time salaried job. However you tip the pizza guy, or would you tip someone delivering a parcel knowing they wouldn't be paid much? That I see as the idea behind tipping knowing that the delivery person gets a small basic and the tips make it a near hourly rate?
Everyone enjoys tips ( meaning: to insure prompt service) but I do not believe the Walmart delivery guy will be expecting it. If perchance someone wants to throw him/her an extra buck or two, so be it. Normally, tips are given to those people who actually make their living on them. I'm sure that any Walmart delivery person would be paid at least the legal minimum wage. That said, it might be prudent to call management and ask what the proper thing would be to do. There is a possibility that the delivering store might even discourage tipping as do some (very few) restaurants here in the U.S.
@preacherbob50 If the 'courier' service is anything like here in the UK (Hermes and Yodel) the workers get paid per delivery, so often they try to bunch them together in the same area to save on gas. That means you as customer may have to wait until it is convenient for the worker to deliver, so is that good? I don't think these jobs carry a minimum wage, but a flat fee of a delivery fee per item, otherwise how could they monitor it?
The laws in the U.S. are so dramatically different than the rest of the free world in that everything here is based on whatever the IRS has to allow. Free lance people have to have permits, bonds and sign form 1099's for taxation. Any company that would use employees as freelancers would be asking for a lot of headaches in paperwork alone. No, I believe if and when Walmart decides to go into the delivery business it will be full bore and be part of the actual business rather than a side service. Existing employees may get 1st option to work in delivery as a second job, but overall I do believe it will be as much part of the business as the garden shop is from the automotive section.
This a brilliant idea. It is especially handy for those people who can't get out of their home. Or maybe someone is just too busy to visit the store. It is also great for the employee as they should get paid for doing the job. It is still work, after all. Even if they are delivering on their way home from work. Once they have left the building the time is theirs. What if they want to go somewhere else and dropping off something takes them out of the way where they want to go. It is a great idea, but employees rights have to be taken into consideration.
While there is much to be debated here, we still haven't determined if this actually benefits shoppers as far as savings. How much would someone actually save by using this service instead of regular shipping? I just can't imagine that it would be very much, certainly not a huge amount. So, does it save more time then? So far, I don't see a big incentive to choose this option. If that is correct then the savings is more for the company than the consumer (shocking, I know). Even pennies, multiplied by millions of people making millions of purchases, really add up. I'm really left with more questions than answers at this point. I guess we'll have to see how the test period goes.
If it comes with an extra cost then it will not be any use to customers. However if it is included in the price of delivery when ordering online then it may work out. I know when you order groceries from Amazon, they have dedicated staff that go on motobikes or mopeds to deliver the food items. It helps them avoid the traffic and to ensure they can deliver the goods on time quickly. I'm not sure how it would work if they are getting the current staff to do this in addition to what they already have to do in store.
@thisnthat You see in the UK, similar places such as Tesco do offer delivery on everything, and they do have dropshipping merchants they you buy directly from and can still earn points (loyalty) on those purchases, but you can't redeem on them. It's like a separate transaction, so while still affiliated it's not the same. Regular shipping is already quite low and there is click and collect which is free, so the point is how much lower can it be, and unlike dedicated tracking systems with drivers, how will you know when the items will be delivered? I had a recent DPD delivery and they emailed me the one hour time window, and other couriers where you have to sign have a PDA which then sends out a confirmation of delivery. If Walmart use any of these systems, it will surely cost them more?
@thisnthat No I don't think that this is a good ideal just to get the customer their order sooner just to compete with Amazon and if they go this rout it isn't the employees job to deliver the package when they're on their way home. Walmart needs to hire someone just for that job because when the employees is on their way home they are off the clock.
@Theo I don't understand. What is the point of getting loyalty points on a purchase if you can't redeem them? What do you do with them? Ah, the tracking thing is a really good point. If you can't track your items, that might give this system less value. Money isn't always the only concern when determining the best deals. Good point. I honestly don't know how it works. I haven't looked into it further or tried it out. Frankly, I'm not even sure it's available in my area. I just came across an item about it and found it interesting. I wondered if it would actually work and whether or not it would end up saving shoppers some cash (although I still don't know, ha ha).
@thisnthat These days they are limited how you can spend them, by adding more small print such as in multiples of X amount. You can redeem them in the store and online, but not for items that are dropshipped. As these items tend to be cheaper than the ones you can collect in store, you have to weigh up where you will save money.
I'm not really sure about this. On the one hand, if I happen to order something from Walmart, and I'm able to get that item in one day because of their delivery service, then that's great. On the other hand, I need more details about the program. Are these employees going to be given any type of training, or is the role of delivery driver just going to be given to any employee who happens to have a car? Postal services, and places like UPS, I'm sure there is some type of training that goes on as far as delivery of packages goes. And will the packages be insured? What's the return policy if the item is damaged? Because they have the means to do so, I'm sure they will work out all the particulars.
Really?! This will be an awesome idea to beat the competition. However, I wonder how far that would be effective... After all, what would be the limits to delivery?
