“Google Express”, Google’s local shopping and delivery service, decided to end their Membership program. A membership will no longer be required to shop there. Current paying members will receive a pro-rated REFUND of their membership fees. This may be a nice amount if you had a prepaid annual membership 🙂

The Help pages at the Google Express page describe the change as follows:

In a related move, Google has a new partnership with Walmart to enable Voice Shopping using the Google Assistant using the Google Home device. Furthermore, Walmart will be joining the growing list of merchants participating in Google Express.

More details via Techmeme.

Starting October 2nd in 2017, Amazon will activate a new policy that makes it easier for buyers to return products purchased and shipped directly from 3rd-party sellers. You will no longer have to contact the 3rd-party seller for a return. You will be able to do it using the Amazon website which will print a prepaid (by the seller) return-shipping label. So the return process will be similar to that of products shipped or fulfilled by Amazon itself.

There’s also a new option for (non-)returning low-cost or high-shipping items or defective items. The sellers have the option to opt-in for “returnless refunds”, where the cost or condition of the item may be such that it would cost the seller more money to process a return, so they’ll instead let the customer keep the item while still issuing them a refund.

From a Buyer perspective, this is great news as it will weed out some of the more iffy or careless sellers, and give you more flexibility in being able to easily return products that are unsatisfactory or defective or otherwise not-as-described.

But from a seller perspective, this is a “sky is falling” moment, where worries of all kinds are expressed by Amazon sellers in multiple threads in the Sellers forum. Fraudulent returns, “free rentals”, losing big on return fees and shipping, feeling pressed into using “fulfilled by Amazon” and so forth.

More details at CNBC.com.

The two biggest TV home shopping networks of the over-the-air antenna era are now one! QVC and HSN are becoming one in a $2.1 billion M&A deal. But wait, if you call now, you’ll get a BONUS TV shopping channel for ABSOLUTELY FREE! Details through Engadget.

If you are an Amazon shopper, and you wonder how all those different 3rd-party sellers get ranked in the Amazon “Add to Cart” section of each product page, you may find this new article at Buzzfeed interesting, as it explains some of the factors and issues, with quotes from multiple Amazon sellers.

A data analyst in the article best defines it: “In a lot of ways the Buy box is a slowed down stock exchange”.

Would you like an organic DSLR with your organic apples? You may soon be able to buy them both side by side. Okay, probably not, but in a surprise announcement today, Amazon revealed that it is paying $13.7 billion in cold hard cash to buy Whole Foods. You can find coverage of this at major tech and business websites and opines by social media gurus, all nicely organized at Techmeme.com.

If you like to shop at Amazon, but don’t want to sign up for a Prime membership [list of benefits], and don’t want to place $35+ orders, we have some good news for you. It looks like Amazon has lowered the free shipping threshold from $35 to $25. While price-checking some of the Bag The Bags, this came up, the minimum shown is $25 instead of $35. This showed up when not logged on to an Amazon account, and also if logged on to a non-Prime account.

If you want practice/test this, here’s a sub-$25 item, screenshot of which can be seen below:

I don’t know if this is a limited time or limited scope experiment (Amazon LOVES to experiment) or this is permanent. (permanent until they change it again that is).

In the previous iterations, books got free shipping with $25+ orders, presumably price-matching the long-standing Barnes & Noble offer. If this sticks, it means books and non-books get free shipping on $25+ orders.

Starting April 19 (2017) Walmart will begin rolling out a new feature, if you select store pickup for a purchase, you may be able to get a small discount on the purchase price. In other words, they are paying you to do the delivery to yourself 🙂 This feature will slowly ramp up, they are planning to include 1 million items by the end of June. As usual, YMMV depending on product availability and location. This will be offered on the 48 contiguous US States.

I am guessing this is a feature that got inspired by the Jet team, which has all kids of nickle-dimer discounts on the Jet website (pay less if you forgo returns, pay less if you pay with debit card, pay less if you buy in quantity, etc). I don’t know if the other Jet features will make it to Walmart, but for now, if you are fond of store pickup, you may be able to save!

More details on the Walmart blog.

Starting April 1st in 2017, Amazon will collect sales tax on all states that collect sales tax. It is already doing so in the vast majority of the states, but with this latest group, it will complete the puzzle. It will obviously not collect sales tax in states where sales tax is not collected (Oregon, Alaska, etc). Details via CNBC.

But because things are never quite as simple, there is a distinction, for tax collection purposes, between products sold and shipped by Amazon (they collect taxes) and products sold by 3rd-party sellers through the Amazon website. The latter category is still up in the air as literally any and every person on earth (and beyond) can be an Amazon seller.

The ever-changing retail landscape has more store closings. The regional chain HH Gregg is closing 40% of its stores (88 of them in 15 states) plus three distribution centers per The USA Today. Bankruptcy is one of the restructuring possibilities according to Bloomberg.

Meanwhile the reborn “Ritz Camera and Image” is closing one store, in Towson (Maryland), according to an email sent to customers. Their Bethesda (MD) store continues.

As the Amazon World Turns! At the moment when you surf around Amazon product pages without being logged on to a Prime Amazon account, you will notice that the free shipping minimum has changed again. Instead of $49+, you only need $35+ in products sold and shipped by Amazon, and/or sold by 3rd-party sellers but fulfilled by Amazon’s facilities. The $25+ book option also remains in place. I am not sure yet whether this is a temporarily experiment or permanent. It is possible that Amazon is price-matching the Walmart-Jet $35 minimum.

For example, here’s a random $40 item that shows free shipping for non-Prime members.

UPDATE: the Prime benefits comprehensive guide has been updated with this, along with a screenshot of the rare Prime shipping from 3rd-party sellers option [see a6300 post].

Fry’s Electronics (fries not included) has now launched a Free Same-Day Delivery service that covers out 500 (high margin?) products. If you place an order before 3pm local time, you will receive your order the same day. Cameras are not included, but some printers, along with select computers and A/V gear are included. Details at their promotional page. You can check whether this service is available near you using their zipcode checker.

The first major impact of Walmart purchasing Jet and giving Jet more power over the Walmart website is happening now. Walmart is cancelling their Shipping Pass service (it was a $49 per year service that got you free shipping Prime-like), and will be refunding paying customers for the service. At the same time, they will lower the free shipping threshold from $50 to $35, and many items will be eligible for free 2-day shipping. Details at the Walmart help pages.

PS: Walmart has an open marketplace (like Amazon, NewEgg, Best Buy, Sears, etc), so the free shipping terms apply to items shipped by Walmart itself (not 3rd-party sellers). As usual with these type of offers, they cover the 48 contiguous states. Non-48 addresses and APO/FPO addresses with US zipcodes will get the free 3-5 day shipping. Until Star Trek Transporters (TM) become commercially available.

Finally Amazon has launched a page where Prime members can keep track of their “slow shipping credits”. These are the “No Rush Credits” that you get if as a Prime member you select a slower shipping method for an order that is eligible for free 2-day shipping. The slower-shipping is not always slow, it’s just that they ship it in a non-priority way, but it can still get there reasonably fast.

The page is this https://www.amazon.com/norushcredits but all you have to remember is to type norushcredits (no rush credits) since amazon.com is easy to remember 🙂 It looks like this (“View Image” to see full size):

Just in time for the holidays, NewEgg is offering a new delivery option for your order, regardless of the shipping delivery speed you select. You can pick up your order at a local participating FedEx Kinko’s facility. In the “Review” stage of the Checkout process, you can select a FedEx location to receive your order. Look for something like this in that page, below your “Shipping Info” column:

There is no additional fee for this delivery option. Your shipping fee is whatever your default delivery fee is, which a lot of times it is free or close to free.

Another benefit of this is that if you live or work or travel to multiple locations on a regular basis, you can send your orders at where you are, instead of having them all go to your home address (assuming the delivery estimates work and such).