EVEN THE GRINCH WOULD BE ASHAMED…
December 17th, 2009
[Update 0626: I'm not the only veteran pissed.]
Normally I wait until the following Wednesday to cross-post items from our Walmart blog — The Writing On The Wal — but this story can’t wait. If there is any chance you have shopping to do and were planning on doing it at Walmart, please read this first. If you’ve bought presents from Walmart, please consider taking them back.
As a former member of our military, this revelation concerning Walmart pisses me off. Remember that snow-in-Iraq TV ad Walmart ran recently? Well the real story is that Walmart is sticking it to service members and their families if a holiday gift is shipped to an Army Post Office address.
From Stars & Stripes:
Overseas military customers ordering gifts online from certain retailers might get an unpleasant surprise when shipping and handling fees are tacked on at the end of the purchase.
Those same customers might be most surprised to find that retail giant Walmart had the biggest markup.
On a $120 purchase, Walmart.com charged $10.35 to ship to an APO address, compared with $2.10 to a stateside address. For most items, Amazon.com charged the same to ship to an APO address as a stateside address. And Target offered shipping on a $120 purchase to an APO address for less than to a stateside address.
Here’s why this is so feckin’ infuriating. If you, or I, ship a package to an APO (or Fleet Post Office) address, we pay the shipping to the post office in the United States, not to the final destination. The military picks up that cost. So what Walmart is doing is charging a premium to bring soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen a little happiness for the holidays and pocketing the extra as pure greedy profit.
This should make the Grinch mad.
[...] [Update -- 1307: Make sure you don't miss reading EVEN THE GRINCH WOULD BE ASHAMED…] [...]
[...] Eric on December 16, 2009 · View commentsComments Jeff Hess has some choice words for Walmart: As a former member of our military, this revelation concerning Walmart pisses me off. Remember [...]