I buy a lot from Amazon but have no real use for Prime. UPS and FEDEX both suck in this state and it's very doubtful anything would be received on the date the orders says. I try to buy what I can from walmart because they have the best refund bar none. Last year I bought an 115 volt air pump so I am not stuck at home with a flat and no way to have it repaired or aired. We have no tire service here. So it was late and it finally did arrive, but they sent two of the same item. When I notified them and told them it would have to be returned the same way I received it by PO. They just said to give it to someone that needs one. I did give it to the neighbor who rides a bike and they both work great. I also bought a cheap battery charger for the old truck. I have reached the point and age I need all those little special things to keep me mobile and I learned some time ago my knees no longer like walking, so even two city blocks was out of the question to go buy groceries. One of my buddies who was a gunship gunner in the Navy lives in Georgia and we talked quite a bit for several years until we both drifted away from facebook. He was joking once and told me that he once was able to jump around in the back of that helicopter like a squirrel. Now he needs help to get a leg up and in, he had two B models at home, one static and the other towed for public showings. Now I know what he was talking about needing the leg up, I have the hardest time just walking up three steps at home.
My experience on that has been mixed. I once received a case of Ramen Noodles that I did not order (must have been from someone else's order) and they told me to just keep it. But another time I ordered a cargo net for my SUV and they sent me a case of them containing 6 retail paks (someone goofed up when stocking it in the warehouse), and they wanted the other 5 back. Since I'm in the store at least weekly, I just dropped it off at the Customer Service counter. I guess there's some balance of Value-to-Return Cost.
I tried ordering from Walmart online once. They wanted me to drive 20-25 miles to pick it up at the nearest store. If I wanted to pick it up in the store, I wouldn't have wasted time shopping online, so I've never tried Walmart's website again.
The only related issue I have had is when I've placed an online order, added an item I "know I'll use eventually" so as to meet the Free Shipping threshold, and that item is one that's carried in the store. They split-ship the order, and that item gets hand-delivered that day or the next day from the store. It's no big deal to me, although it seems like a waste of resources and I'd rather not be a part of it. I have never had any store-stocked item ship from a warehouse...it has always been hand-delivered from the store. Maybe these things overlap, and Walmart does not carry store-stocked products in their warehouses, and because you're out of their delivery radius they tell you to pick it up. But as you said, that's a horrible system defect that does not warn you, or that allows you to add such an item to your Cart when you have not chosen Curbside PickUp as your delivery method. I'll throw out another defect in this Walmart "ordering store-stocked items" process that will make you shake your head. I ordered some of those emergency light/night lights because store inventory on them is spotty, and I wanted 5. So I ordered them on the website (erroneously thinking they would ship from a warehouse), and the next day a package was hanging on my doorknob. It contained 3 of the item I ordered (that was all they had in the store), and 2 different nightlights. It seems that when you order products that are sold in the store (and that get hand-picked and hand-delivered), the system does not manage Back-Orders...yet it will process an order for more than the store's On Hand Quantity (and charge your credit card for the entire Ordered quantity.) So they just pick a "kinda like it" product, adjust your system order to keep their inventory straight, put it in the bag and deliver it, making you decide whether to keep it or to return it. I have no idea how far they stretch the "kinda like it" rationalization to justify delivering things they have on hand (if they're out of cat food do they deliver a mouse trap?) It's a rather odd thing for a $570+ billion business to do.
That's kind of what happened. I went on the site to order a particular thing that my wife wanted, then added some other items in order to get free shipping, and they were going to ship some of it but wanted me to pick other things up at the store. Had that been made clear to me before I put it in the shopping cart, I might not have minded, but I didn't find that out until I was at checkout. That sort of defeats the purpose of shopping online, in my opinion, so I abandoned my shopping cart and bought the thing my wife wanted on Amazon. It was a little cheaper from Walmart, which is why I was going to buy it there, but not when you figure in the drive time.
The risk you're at is when you order stuff that's in the store, they'll process your order even if that product (or quantity) is not available...they will unilaterally substitute something. So you could have driven all that way only to discover that the stuff waiting for you was "as close as they could get" from what they had on hand that day. And they don't even warn you. After driving 25 miles one way, THAT will pi$$ you off.
Very little is available here for online order from Walmart. It is either in the store or you cannot get it. Amazon Prime has been a lifesaver for us. We used to spend $300 to $500 just in shipping for Christmas gifts to the children and grandchildren...and in-laws. Now the shipping is free and, if we cannot determine what they might want, a gift card is always available as an alternative. The consequences of having 6 children and 15 grandchildren so far, as well as sons and daughters in law.
I guess your Walmart does not offer "Ship-to-Store" so you can pick up your special order stuff there. Mine does, and I used to use it all the time so I wouldn't have to worry about Free Shipping minimums (then COVID disrupted it.) One would think your Walmart could get just a little creative and help support people in regions like yours (and increase business.) I gotta think they could aggregate and stage special orders over a period of time, then include them with regular inventory deliveries when sufficient volume is achieved. People would gladly exchange deferred delivery for enhanced availability, and I bet the volume would soon reach a level where there would be no need to aggregate & stage. To veer back on topic...I was going to make a similar observation about Amazon getting creative, but without a retail storefront, Amazon has neither routine bulk shipments nor a central retail destination that would make such aggregation & delivery feasible.
They do supposedly offer ship-to-store for pickup, but there are a lot of things that don't routinely ship to Alaska. Some things I don't understand and some I do. I understand why they don't ship large items or loaded ammo, but even some small radios don't ship "outside the country".
I forget exactly what regs govern shipping (or even carrying) certain technologies overseas...I've not been in that world in a while. I had no idea this was a CONUS thing and not just a foreign nations thing.
As it turned out, I was originally supposed to receive the air purifier today, but then they changed the arrival date to Thursday and refunded the entire price. After all that, I came downstairs today to find that it was delivered today after all, the day that it was originally scheduled to be delivered, and it's free. I'm not sure what that was all about, but I'm not unhappy. This was all on them. I hadn't filed any complaints.
Looks like the Prime Day sales are heating up. July 12-13 are the official dates but there are a lot of electronics already on sale (TVs, Amazon devices, etc.)
It was a Chinese radio that wouldn't ship "outside the country". I ordered one while visiting daughters in Washington and got it in one day. Things are strange. When I lived in the bush, I found that you could ship cases of distilled alcohol on passenger planes, but you couldn't ship charcoal, as it was too flammable.
Yeh, Diogenes had a better shot at success than someone looking for an honest statute. I'm not understanding the "loaded ammo" issue. I know it's technically HAZMAT, but common carriers (UPS, FedEx) have delivered to me all the time. A quick web search on "Shipping ammo" brings up "...to Alaska," as though there are special considerations. A brief glance indicates that going through Canada is one issue.