Jet.com developments

   Every month I make part of my grocery purchases online. My most used is Jet.com, a recently acquired property of Walmart, aka 'Wally World'.
   Since I started shopping there, Walmart bought the shop and made some modifications. None of them good for the consumer. The packaging has become inferior. Online catalog advertisement quality has been showing signs of problems. Last week, I ran across an add that had an image for a product, different than the item featured in the text. An accident, I'm sure. Today I was browsing garbage bags and ran across an ad for one of those generic, economy bags always to be found. The problem was, the dimensions of the bag were incorrect. I did a search online for the product and discovered more, ,not only were the dimensions wrong, the thickness of the plastic was only 0.7mil. That's probably fine for leaf bags in Autumn, but for kitchen waste, 3.0mil is what I consider a minimum.
   I will keep shopping Jet as long as the shipping, ads, and product quality stay above a minimum acceptable level. I hope they do. I like Jet and its representatives. Compared to Wally World, they're 'peachy keen.'

   A note about eBay. If you're not into investigating the product and using Google's search engine, shopping eBay may not be for you. They make some effort to regulate the site, but there are thousands of sellers there. As an analogy, if you're not comfortable in a marketplace with a wide variety of products and characters, and uncomfortable doing business in that environment, you won't like eBay.

1.Look for eBay's Money Back Guarantee
2.Stick with highly rated sellers.
3.Sellers who've sold thousands of items.
4.Sellers who have a returns policy.
5.Sellers with few negative ratings ( some people will give you negative rating without hesitation).
6.Sellers who supply adequate information and informative images of their items.
7.Do your research.
8.Know something about the item and its typical market value.
   The item may be cheaper offline, or elsewhere online, e.g. Jet or Walmart.


These are not hard and fast rules, by any means. You can do well without one or more, but understand the possible consequences before you do. Be prepared to communicate. Understand eBay's return system. Understand the Feedback system and how to do Follow Up feedback. Understand the feedback system is not a quality judgement system, but more like a fan rating system.
   Why do I say this? In my mind, a negative experience is one in which the transaction is less than smooth. A neutral experience, is for me, one which goes as expected, as planned. No pluses, no negatives. Hum drum. Yawn.
   A positive experience is when a glitch occurs but is dealt with promptly, politely and efficiently.
That and anything more. Some sellers go above and beyond the call, so to speak.
   A negative experience is one in which the item has to be sent back or the seller communicates badly or not at all. Not uncommon when dealing with foreign sellers. I make adjustments for people not fluent in English. Bad attitudes are negative.
   This is not how the eBay rating system works. The grading seems to be: neutral is positive, negative is neutral, and something really horrible has to happen to be considered negative. I've given two negatives out of the six hundred plus purchases I've made on eBay.
   Generally, an unresolved issue is a negative experience. Everything else is neutral or positive. Neutral is generally, considered a negative rating. Funny, I thought neutral meant 'zero', as in +, 0, - (positive, neutral, negative), not unlike a 'C' grade in school. Apparently, a "C" is considered a "D".
I understand the system. I remember becoming an overachiever in tech school. Anything less than an "A" was unacceptable. The very least had to be a "B".
   I'm not sure of the appropriateness of that grading system in any environment. I wouldn't impose that system on anyone but myself. Apologies to Linda.
   That's the post.

Latest episode

   As a precursor, let me state that this is the only one of my blogs intended for the intelligent, educated consumer, with or without, a university degree. Though one wouldn't hurt.

   Received packages from Walmart ('Wally World'), Jet and eBay. Some surprises were had.
 
First off, the eBay packages contained:

a shelf bracket ( one only - surprise); ordered another one from another vendor.

a 30-disk set of blank dvds with a broken spindle; some do not even come with a spindle. The pack had been taped together and the top dvd ruined by tape glue. I requested and got a partial refund.

a buck voltage down converter, dysfunctional.

a set of four Bormiolli wine glasses. Great shipping. The manufacture's box inside another box and padded with air pillows. Perfect deal. Lowest price. Great packing. Quick delivery.

a roll of self-amalgamating tape ( haven't figured out what that is exactly, seems to mean self-sticking) to use as electrical tape.

Walmart (Wally World)

Another surprise. W has begun offering 2-day shipping for some products. I received a bag of tortilla chips from that list. The chips came in a larger box with, would you believe it, air pillows. Of course, the rest of the order came with the usual brown wrapping paper and poorly packed.

Jet
The order came in Wally World packing and suffered the same issues. I've noticed something else.
Sometimes, I get the impression some of Walmart's vendors are sending them factory seconds.
I also get the impression that Walmart has imposed more than a shipping scheme on Jet. Some of their shipments have issues. Unlike W, a call to Jet results in prompt, friendly, and satisfactory resolution. A long way from Walmart's response. A case of soda pop came with one can having a pinhole leak on the top rim. I hope Jet survive's their relationship with Walmart.

online shopping - eBay, Walmart, Jet and more

Shopping online can be a good way to save money or increase the range of diversity in available products and brands. The drawback is the inability to see up close and touch, smell, hear the product.
A lot can be learned from such encounters.
   I order online regularly from places such as eBay, Walmart, Jet and others. Walmart and Jet have some of the best online values in groceries. Needless to say, fresh foods such as meat, fruits and vegetables and dairy products are not shippable and therefore not available online. However, anything in a bag, box, or bottle or can is usually available. One reason I've started to look around for something better is Walmart's shipping practices are, frankly, unacceptable. At first, everything was fine, then as time passed, more and more products were unavailable online, specifically, name brand soda pop. You know the ones, the big two, P and C.
   Then things worsened when the packing devolved. At one time, Walmart used inflated plastic pillows to pack items susceptible to damage, such as potato chips. Items of similar frgility were packed in the same box, Canned goods were packed in separate boxes. This worked well. Then the plastic pillows disappeared and were replaced by yardafter yard after yard of brown wrapping paper.
   Then the care that was taken to keep fragile items separate from canned and other hard goods disappeared. Heavy cans of soup or beans crushed boxes of crackers or worse, bags of potato chips.
   When I thought things could not get much worse, the quality of the people doing the packing dropped.
   Some of the higher end potato chips come in heavy duty bags and filled with air. This protects the consumer from damage to the product by careless bag boys/girls, stockers and other hazards. I began to notice all the higher end chip bags were deflated and the chips crushed. Anfd this in a box with no obvious hazards to damage the product. Apparently, Walmart had gotten so cheap, they were hiring people with destructive tendencies who would vandalize the chips, or were, perhaps, for some other reason, deflating the bags.
    Now, the best way to order is divide the order up into $50 lots, separating the fragile from the heavy and hard, yourself. One order will contain fragile products, another will contain canned products, and yet another will contain plastic bottled goods. This wont stop chip bags from being crushed, but will improve the product delivery.
   I ran across jet.com while looking for an improvement over Walmart. They were ideal. Many of their product prices were lower. The prices lowered even while you were adding more items to your order. Where Walmart no longer sold the name beran soda pops, Jet did and does, though as I will explain, the situation is changing.
   All the virtues I had found when I first began shopping online at Walmart, I now found at Jet, plus some. Unfortunately, a few months after I found them, so did Walmart, and bought Jet.
   Guess what happened, and is happening. The degeneration in packing practice is occurring at Jet. I mentioned this the first time I emailed a complaint over a damaged product. The responder informed me Jet was still an independent company and would remain so. My guess is, Walmart did a makeover on Jet's shipping department and the degradation taking place is the result.
   Jet is still a better place to shop. Customer service is quite good. Much better than Walmart. In a national survey of grocery outlets, done by Consumer Reports Magazine (remember Ralph Nader boomers?), Walmart was absolutely the worst at customer service. In fact, nobody came close.
   I have always been politely, refunded, in a friendly manner,  for damaged goods, albeit, an occurance that takes place with every  order now.
   Amazon sells $29.95 cases of soda pop that can be had at your local market for $4.95. The same can be said of eBay.
   eBay can be a source of good deals too. Much care has to be taken in approaching that marketplace though. Readin pages like a lawyer reading a contract is the best advice. Insist on buying from highly rated "Top Seller"'s. Buy only when the seller accepts returns or eBay's money back guarantee applies. Don't hesitate to email the seller with questions about the item. Be polite, but insistent on getting the facts you need know. Don't be mislead by advertising headlines. Read between the lines. Don't assume anything. Many, if not most sellers, are honest people into selling items from their homes, they no longer need. Some make extra money selling buys from a local thrift (junk) store.
Some sellers have a very large inventory and make a living on eBay. Some large companies have an eBay site.
   Then there's the dark side. People who are difficult to communicate with if they communicate at all. Some will not. Products that arrive damaged, or are the wrong item. Some people are intentionally trying to rip people off. Some make genuine mistakes. Beware of sellers with low sales rates. A person who's sold 48,000 items is more likely to respond to your issues than someone who has sold only one. A person with a low sale rate may be selling bad product long enough to make money and disappear only to open again under another name. Yet others will have an item you want at what seems like a reasonable price, but inflate the shipping rate to get more money. Look at shipping rates for the same product from different sellers and try to determine whether the charge is excessive.
   Do comparison shopping for the best value. Not just on eBay, but local brick and mortar shops, or other online sources.
   Auctions are a good way to get a good deal but caution is needed. More than once, I've watched as a bidding frenzy raised the item price beyond reasonable amounts. Watch an auction and search for the same item at a lower price in a different auction or as a "Buy Now" deal. A lot of good deals are had outside of the auction environment.
   The best approach is to watch and learn over time. One strategy that may work in one situation may not work in another.
   Be familiar with the product return process. A printer can come in handy, as can a knowledge of the post office's resources at your disposal. Their "Flat Rate" shipping is a good approach for occasional shippers. Generally, the post office is less expensive than FedEx or UPS. Tracking is a good way to reassure a buyer or a seller expecting a return, their item is on its way.