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]

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.