Oh how I love shopping at Walmart. As obvious as that statement may sound, I had a new-found appreciation for Walmart when I lived without one near me for four years! In a small town of 2600 people in Saskatchewan I was left to groan at the price of shampoo at the local drugstore and sigh over the price of a loaf of bread at the local grocery store (with four aisles, carpeted, I’m not kidding!)
I wish shopping was available at Walmart.ca back then because it would have certainly made my budgeting easier! Free-shipping is pretty standard with most purchases from Walmart.ca too so it would have been a no-brainer to use it had it been available!
As part of my affiliation with P&G Moms, we were tasked with shopping at Walmart.ca using a Visa gift card to try out the site and see what was available among our favorite P&G brand products. My original intention was to stock up on my favorites but then I realized that P&G’s generosity has taken over my bathroom closet so I thought I would share the love and send a box of goodies to my mother. In her 70’s, she doesn’t own a computer and doesn’t therefore shop online, so I thought this would be a great treat for her (and it was!)
I wanted to look for some of my favorite items to give to my mom, having the opportunity to try so many as a P&G Mom, but also wanted to give her some items she was already familiar with. Growing up, Olay was always on my mom’s dresser so I knew I had to start with Olay products!
The selection process was easy, just choose the item you want and add to your cart. Items show if they “may” qualify for free shipping (all of mine did). I did run into some frustration when hitting the back button, however. Rather than go back to the last category I was looking at (all Olay products, for example), I was bumped back to the original category in it’s entirety (Health & Beauty). It caused me a few extra steps but then I got wise and right clicked to open the link to a specific product in a new tab.
The site also crashed on me more than once during the check-out process which was frustrating. Since I was on a mission, literally, I gave it some time and came back a few minutes later to attempt it again. As a regular customer, I’m not so sure I would be as patient.
However, all that was forgotten when my mom received her surprise box of goodies in the mail under a week later! She was thrilled with her new Vidal Sassoon shampoo and conditioner, Tide Pods, Downy Unstopables, Febreze Fabric Refresher, Swiffer dusting wand and of course Olay lotion among the other items inside.
I am hopeful that a company as huge as Walmart gets to the bottom of the website issues (they certainly need to talk to whomever developed the site for them) so that customers can have an easy and frustration-free shopping experience. Perhaps teaming up with P&G Moms was part of that process, they have real moms on the site seeing how functional it is and reporting back. Once the kinks are worked out, I’d definitely return to shop online for gift-giving again, especially during the upcoming holiday season. Yes, I said it. Holiday season. GAH!
I’d love to shop at Walmart.ca but I never qualify for free shipping, which is strange since I have no problems with other places that offer free shipping. Most times it is cheaper for me to buy it locally or at another site than to buy there because of the shipping.
I hope it continues to expand though and get as big as Walmart.com…I’d be in heaven! lol
I didn’t realize that shipping was low cost with Wal-Mart online. I am going to check it out after posting this. I don’t often have an opportunity to shop at Wal-Mart but this would definitely be a reason to return to them. Thanks for this, Tenille 🙂