I’m hoping someone has a definitive answer for what causes the phenomenon, but educated guesses are cool too.

Lately I’ve been trying more generic products to try saving some money, and despite my dislike for the company, Walmart generally has the cheapest prices around me for groceries. But trying to read product reviews to get an idea of what to expect it seems like the vast majority of comments don’t talk about the product’s qualities at all but just Walmart related service problems.

“This item was missing from my order!”
“It’s expired, I want a refund!”
“The can was dented.”
“Delivery driver put the chips under the milk!”
etc.

My question is: are these just confused users that are intentionally leaving these pointless messages on specific products they order instead of contacting support, or (my current suspicion) that Walmart is somehow presenting them with some kind of post-purchase rating request that is easily confused as something intended for customer service?

And regardless of the cause of it, why doesn’t Walmart do anything to filter them out? They don’t help prospective shoppers decide on an item, and usually only serve to make the employees/company look bad.

I don’t place orders on their site so I don’t know what the typical web order flow looks like to the end user so I’m hoping someone has an idea what’s causing it.

  • DABDA@lemm.eeOP
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    2 days ago

    It’s not like specific items always being unavailable, it’s just different random things being OOS necessitating a second grocery stop. It happens everywhere, but at least post Covid, and in my region, it happens consistently with Target.
    e.g.:

    • Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup
    • Kraft mac & cheese
    • (any) Butter sticks
    • Jack’s frozen pizza
      • DABDA@lemm.eeOP
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        2 days ago

        Tombstone is more expensive than Jack’s but it’s definitely a huge step up in quality. When I’m just focused on maximizing my budget Jack’s is the lowest I’ll tolerate. But if the goal is taste and quantity of toppings, Tombstone is certainly the better option.

        • charade_you_are@sh.itjust.works
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          2 days ago

          Good to know about Jack’s place on the frozen pizza ranking. I actually like the sauce on Tombstone pizzas which is rare for me. Pepperoni tastes pretty damn too.