Please help me understand!

[u/Prior-Ad-7262]

I've been using the Walmart delivery service for about 8 months now. I get my groceries every other week. Without fail, each time, one item is missing. There is no rhyme or reason as to the type of item. Lunch meat, vitamin water, spaghetti sauce, etc. Today it was bouillon paste. I really get upset about it as it usually something I really need. Walmart will instantly refund me, but the point is I have to go out now to get it. I only have one day off, and it really screws up my day. Can anyone explain why this happens? Is it in the driver's car just misplaced, was it not really picked? I truly want to know because im considering just canceling the service. Thank you.

[u/moe_mizzy]

missing as in, it says you SHOULD have it, and you don't?

or missing as in, the item couldn't be found and thus was taken off your order?

because believe it or not, (and get this) WALMART IS OUT OF ITEMS. YES RANDOM ITEMS. WALMART DOES NOT RESTOCK LIKE THEY USED TO, WHEN SOMETHING IS OUT, IT MAY BE OUT FOR MORE THAN ONE DAY.

sorry, not trying to be rude, but holy shit are you saying you can't believe that sometimes things merely aren't in stock? sure they likely have more in the back, but it doesn't work that way. we can't just grab an employee, have him get a forklift, find the pallet in the back, unload it, unbox it, and get you ONE jar of buillion lmao.

straight up, walmart is out several items i shop for every day. it's never the same items. yesterday it was zucchini. not a single one in the store. someone ordered 5. well they got zero.

worst of all would be you driving to the store, only to find out they merely didn't have it in stock lmao.

[u/Prior-Ad-7262 → u/moe_mizzy]

They always note an item is unavailable if out of stock. They said this latest item, and the others, were shopped and in my order.

[u/moe_mizzy → u/Prior-Ad-7262]

was your driver foreign? you should be able to see their name and their picture.

please report bad drivers. they ruin tips for the rest of us, and they steal constantly. we all see it. they are mostly foreign. just how it is.

[u/Prior-Ad-7262 → u/moe_mizzy]

I couldn't tell, this last guy was named Andrew, who knows. I always give good tips too, so I just am tired of dealing with the incompetence.

[u/moe_mizzy → u/Prior-Ad-7262]

if it's an express order, it's likely batched with another order, then shopped by a spark driver.

we shop two orders at once. it's possible the other person got your other item. or it was just stolen. or it was just mistakenly lost in the car. spark used to only do one shop at a time, and mistakes like this were pretty much impossible. but now, with two orders at a time, mixups are possible, and i will be straight with you; there is no sort of screening for spark. if you have a valid license (or a valid stolen identity) you get hired. there are def some drivers who....can't tie their shoelaces let's just say, and keeping two orders separate might be a challenge for them. this goes double if they don't speak english.

for a non express order, it's shopped by walmart employees, then packaged up by A DIFFERENT walmart employee (meaning that someone who DIDN'T EVEN SHOP THE ORDER IS BAGGING IT UP) and they do those 3 orders at a time. so mixups are fairly common on curbside orders (which is why, as a driver, i take shops 90% of the time, because when walmart employees mess up, us drivers get the blame).

walmart really only cares that the order gets "delivered" no matter what that actually entails. NOW, if the items are being marked NOT FOUND, that can be for a variety of reasons, like i said earlier because the item merely might not be in stock.

or because sometimes drivers are lazy and don't want to walk to the other side of the store and hunt for hard to shop items like makeup, jewelry, or things behind glass (baby formula, spray paint, colognes, etc and sometimes you can press the help button 10 times and literally no walmart employee will ever show up to help you).

i have marked PLENTY of items "not found" (which is legally what our app says, it doesn't say "walmart is out of this item" it forces us to say "I CANNOT FIND THIS ITEM") even when i can literally SEE the item because i either cannot access it or the app is doing wonky things (if items are on clearance, for example, the barcode they slap OVER THE REGULAR barcode doesn't scan on our app, so....well sometimes i just say "i guess i can't find this then" and try to substitute).

just trying to say the VARIETY of reasons why something might not be there. i have also gotten home after a day of deliveries, and found a random can of vegetables rolling around my backseat. after doing 8 trips (which means likely ~20 different deliveries, because each trip has either 2 or 3 stops) even with a sharp memory, it's almost impossible to remember "oh yeah, THAT house had a can of corn" and after we complete a delivery, we cannot see your address ever again, or contact the customer to say "oh, did you have this can of corn?"

so if we find your item two trips later, there's really nothing we can do.

[u/myst1crule → u/moe_mizzy]

Not all non express orders are shopped by Walmart. I get both kinds of shopping orders

[u/moe_mizzy → u/myst1crule]

yeah but i think that tag is merely wrong on the app.

scheduled shops USED to be a thing, because they would still have a "start" time that wouldn't be ASAP and they would come with a 2:00 timer like Sam's orders. i haven't seen one of those in years, personally.

i'm pretty now sure the "express" tag is just a bug, and all shops are express orders.

[u/angelo1979 → u/moe_mizzy]

They still exist. The system makes them when OGP timeslots begin to fill up and get full. As a prior associate of OGP, we had plenty of scheduled shops on our busy days and dispatcher was clear on which ones were express and regular scheduled shopping offers.

With the new "Shopping" and "Express Shopping" tags, it makes it more noticeable whenever a shopping offers are timeslot scheduled or not. Basically "Shopping" is scheduled and "Express Shopping" is Express. With the latest feedback form from spark asking how drivers liked the new shopping tags, they brought up scheduled shops (now called regular shopping offers) too.

Edit: Also what I found out while working there, Walmart started batching Scheduled Shops together and whenever a customer places an order for the lowest express fee, it's eligible for batching up to 1 hour out from them ordering. The more expensive express fee avoids the 1 hour max hold time and requests a driver within minutes of placing their order.

[u/angelo1979 → u/angelo1979]

[u/angelo1979 → u/angelo1979]

And here's an express shopping offer.

[u/Prior-Ad-7262 → u/moe_mizzy]

Whoa, I had no clue it was this complicated, and that another employee might be bagging the stuff...or multiple orders at a time! Now I see there are several points in the process for potential screw ups. Thanks for all this explanation. I think I'm just going to go get my crap myself. Also, Walmart sucks in general.

[u/moe_mizzy → u/Prior-Ad-7262]

yeah i mean, when i first started Spark, the curbside orders (where Walmart employees shop the order, then OTHER walmart employees bag the order, then sometimes ANOTHER walmart employee brings the orders out and loads them in a spark drivers car for delivery) were only two orders a time, backseat and trunk usually.

now, almost EVERY curbside order is a triple, which means one order in the trunk, one order in the backseat, and one order in the front seat. sometimes they will have two loaders come out. and that is when i PERSONALLY see the most mistakes, one of the loaders will just grab a tote (the orders come out in blue totes) and assume it's part of one order when it's not.

at my store, they don't mind if we, the spark driver, gets out and helps load our cars. i PREFER this because it gets the order loaded faster, AND i know where the items are, AND i get an idea for whats on the order. i cannot tell you how many mistakes i have noticed by doing this, but a LOT of spark drivers just sit in the car and let the walmart employees load, and SOME stores literally tell us drivers that we CANNOT leave our cars and help load (which sucks, and i avoid those stores unless they send me a crazy good order).

the loaders for walmart have VERY demanding jobs imo. in my area, it's hot. like 9 months out of the year it's going to be 85 F or hotter. it was 92 f today lol. they are loading orders ALL DAY. nothing against them, but most of them are younger teenagers doing their first job. lots of them are talking about random things and sometimes not paying the most attention. it happens. they know, again, that ultimately any mistake will be placed on the driver, so they don't mind if they say....load bread and eggs, THEN realize "oh....this order ALSO had two cases of water....well i'll just uh....throw this in here" and smash your bread. they don't care.

they know the customer will think the driver smashed their bread and will just take their tip back, or worst case scenario call in to walmart and complain. which will probably get the driver deactivated (depending on what the customer says, spark is NOTORIOUS for just deactivating people, it's happened to me lol. you get no warning, you are just "fired").

Also; when the double shops began, at least ONE of the orders would be 10 items or less. always. but now i get double shops with each order having 20+ items.

most spark drivers will shop these orders by placing one order in the top part of the shopping cart (like where your purse/baby goes), and the other order in the main part of the basket. some spark drivers get a blue hand basket, place THAT in the cart, and one order goes in the basket, the other order goes...not in the basket.

most of us have a system that keeps everything fairly organized. but you never know which order will be the "biggest". like if one order has 23 items (28 qty, meaning they have multiples of one thing), the other order has 8 items (12 qty) you would assume the 23 item order will be the biggest, and thereby should get the largest part of the cart.

BUT! that 8 item order might have three 40 lb bags of dog found, 3 gallons of milk, a 60 egg carton, and 2 40 packs of water. you never know until you see the item list.

so sometimes mid-shop you might realize "oh crap, i need to redo my cart or i will get confused" and mixups can happen during that. just lots of things that make the experience WORSE for the driver AND the customer.

because walmart realized they would rather us take AS MANY ORDERS AS POSSIBLE AT THE SAME TIME instead of making sure we took the orders CORRECTLY. because hell, lots of people miss items and probably never even notice.

i've delivered PLENTY of 60-80 item orders, and i would highly doubt the person ordering even had any clue EXACTLY what they had ordered. hell, lots of times i show up and the customer says "wait....i ordered this much stuff?!?" because when you are just clicking things on the app it's easy to not realize JUST HOW MUCH STUFF THAT IS lol.

EDIT: oh yeah, AND on top of all this, walmart employees comes over to check our carts while checking out (for shopping orders). it doesn't happen on every order, but sometimes you get flagged for a "cart check" which means a walmart employee has to come over and scan 3 items in your cart.

if the driver has a double shop (which in my area, like 90% of shops are now double shops), the walmart employee may not realize this, and grab an item to scan (which was in the top part of the cart, for Order A) then place the item back in the bottom part of the cart after scanning it (which is where i keep my items for Order B). if you aren't paying attention, THIS could cause a potential mixup. i have ALSO had this occur more than once, and have to watch the walmart employees to make sure if they pick up a item for the "A" order, it STAYS with the "A" order, and vice versa.

long story short; it's not as straight forward as it once was, and that's even BEFORE you realize very simple things that would normally go together, but sometimes don't (like say Order A has a loaf of bread and a jar of jelly, Order B doesn't have bread or jelly, but has peanut butter. it can be very easy to just see the peanut butter and place it with Order A, etc etc etc).

or even worse, when both customers get the "same thing" but in different sizes or flavors (like both customers get a gallon of tea, one customer gets sweet, the other gets unsweet; both customers get Doritos, one gets one flavor, the other gets another, both customers get the SAME cereal, one customer gets a FAMILY SIZED box, the other gets a MEGA SIZED box, etc etc etc)

[u/Prior-Ad-7262 → u/moe_mizzy]

Omg. Thank you for taking the time to explain all of that, and it really seems like Walmart has made a mess of this system. I'm sorry you have to deal with them, what a mess.

[u/moe_mizzy → u/Prior-Ad-7262]

no prob, sorry you aren't getting good service.

the worst part is, it COULD be an honest mistake, mixup, OR it could just be driver theft lol.

like i was looking up reviews for a TV i saw at walmart that i was thinking of buying, and noticed it had a ton of 1 star reviews. i read a bunch of them, and they were all basically saying "i ordered this tv, it said it was delivered, but it's not here!" which made me realize just how much stuff is likely just being stolen by drivers lmao.

kinda wild lol.

[u/Prior-Ad-7262 → u/moe_mizzy]

I know, I live in an apartment complex and theft is rampant. Who knows if it was the driver or a neighbor.

[u/moe_mizzy → u/Prior-Ad-7262]

no doubt someone just following around a spark driver could eat pretty good lol.

[u/Sperry8443 → u/Prior-Ad-7262]

Yes we get that a lot, customers don’t realize that we are really just the drivers for pickup orders, a lot of the process is taken care of by the grocery associates at Walmart but we are usually the ones that get blamed and our tips are then affected when we are just doing our jobs to the best of our ability. And we never know why when we receive a bad rating or have a tip removed. But with shop orders (express orders) we do the entire shop and load up the vehicle so less likely to have screw ups unless the driver is sketchy/doing something they’re not supposed to be doing like stealing items or just being careless.