I know they’re just doing their jobs, but all of those people with carts full of baskets blocking the aisles and being so hateful if you ask them to move, hand you something they’re blocking off, etc is getting old. They should have a dedicated crew to do picking and packing when the store isn’t open to the public so they don’t block aisles off and inconvenience in-person customers.
Comments
Please remember what subreddit you are in, this is unpopular opinion. We want civil and unpopular takes and discussion. Any uncivil and ToS violating comments will be removed and subject to a ban. Have a nice day!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
Even better. Maybe they shouldn’t allow any other customers in the store when you are shopping. That way you aren’t inconvenienced by other shoppers with their carts being in your way and being rude when you ask them to move, etc.
just join them and switch to online pick up.
What does odp mean?
It’ll be okay.
Maybe you should just use ODP so you don’t have to go and be so horrendously inconvenienced.
Man, funk all of this, just give us back our 24/7 Walmarts. Spinning it to people like “you gotta come in before we open” or “stay after we close” will be an extremely hard sell even tho it’d mean that it’s their normal business hours, just not to the public for a portion of that time.
I use this subreddit correctly tho and don’t downvote unpopular opinions like an idiot.
You realize that this one person is shopping for 10 people at once, right? ODP is keeping way more people out of the store. This isn’t unpopular, it’s just self centered and stupid.
Aw, is poor wittle OP inconvenienced? Get over yourself
There’s zero chance Walmart would do this.
ODP is growing a wild rates and is really the future for Walmart. Shopping during the day allows them to provide more flexibility for the people ordering and allowing them to fill more slots. Cutting that off would kill the service.
You people who are going inside the store to pick out stuff are the ones who are clogging up the aisles. You have kids and dogs and are old and slow and can’t make up your mind about what you want and stand there blocking the shelves. Stop blaming ODP.
I mean, I get your frustration because their baskets are HUGE and always in the way. But if someone wants a delivery that day, how else are they gonna do it. It would be far more inconvenient to us in person shoppers if they had to close the store down all morning so they could get these orders picked and then you only had shopping hours from like 12 to 8 pm.
Just boycott Walmart cuz they’re trash anyway. They are an abusive employer, crappy customer service, don’t care about employees or customers, only profit. They leave cold goods outside of the refrigerator and freezer for hours at a time and sell it like nothing happened, terrible at rotating stock they just stuff items in front of older items, the OPD totes have rotting spilled products and ants and old stinky rain water in them that they don’t clean out. Everything you touch in the backroom turns your hands black because they don’t clean where the customers can’t see. The whole place just sucks. Sincerely, a former employee of multiple stores across the country, so I can confirm it is the same in most stores.
Edit: small spelling mistake.
Definitely an unpopular opinion, sad that people don’t remember to upvote those on this sub
Have you considered either ordering your Walmart items online for delivery or shopping somewhere else. Walmart doesn’t need to change to please you. You can leave because they displease you.
I solve this problem for myself by just demanding they get out of my way. I do it politely at first but if they give me any attitude I lose my ability to be a reasonable person. Usually goes like this, “Sorry, could I get by?” They give me a look, ignore me, or say they’ll move while continuing to be in the way. “MOVE.” I have a 100% success rate of getting people to move when I speak in all caps. I usually only have to use this once out of like three or four shopping trips. Typically asking nicely works.
E-commerce sucks! I worked it. The metrics are different and more demanding versus the rest of the departments. When stockers have to put items away even half as fast as the ogp is expected to pick them, then you can b***h about blocked aisles. For my store in particular, ogp didn’t hog aisles. But a lot of us were also friends with the stockers, so that in and of itself tends to make for a more courteous work environment. Of course it wouldn’t be walmart without workplace drama and someone in ogp complaining about pallets in the aisles slowing them down. My answer to them was always “if you want better metrics, be nicer to Cap 1&2”. The truth is I can’t pick what they don’t stock. And if they don’t do their job, I can’t do mine. But then again, I was also the employee using my own money to buy pizzas for all of OGP and Cap 1 to show my appreciation. You can bet I upped the appreciation at Christmas when the back is filled with nothing but bikes (iykyk). In my store, the gm was strict when it came to ogp and the carts. The last thing you want to do is leave your cart unattended, lol. I’m sorry your store sucks. Seems to be the standard though for walmart.
Why are Wal-Mart workers allowed to re-stock the shelves during peak shopping hours? Talk about aisle-blocking….
This feels less about them doing their job during the day and more about them being grumpy and rude while working. Better pay and working conditions could help on that front?
I completely understand where youre coming from, but thats when the majority shelves get stocked. It would slow that process down immensely. The odp carts can barely get passed a pallet if it’s in an aisle and overnight stocking works best if we stock from a pallet.
The majority of grocery picking should be early in the morning and then again later in the evening like 5am -10 am then 8pm-11pm. Everything from 10am-8pm should be large items, exceptions, and short grocery runs. The could also do cold and fresh runs during that time since those are typically wider areas.
Then everyone would have to wait until the next day to receive their order. Maybe the workers should just be a lot more courteous. Complain to the store.
Walmart was like this before online orders bro
Wouldn’t it just be better to say they should just treat their employees to be more respectful of customers?
Having worked something similar for another store. It sucks for both ends
The customer doesn’t get the items they want because it has to be picked for an order and the employees often gets chewed out because they don’t have magical powers to conjure missing items on the shelf that the customers decided to buy or move around.
You don’t find the customers to be a bigger issue?
This is a popular opinion. Logistically not feasible but yeah those app shoppers are annoying.
[deleted]
You lost it here with the accusation that all these people are hateful. Do a little better.
Frankly, it isn’t practical to have the online orders picked outside of store hours, as it would require orders to then sit overnight or be picked in the very early morning. It would also hinder maintaining and restocking the store.
That said, while the pickers can be a little obtrusive, I don’t find them the problem you do. I have found I can shop around them very easily and in the rare cases I actually do need to ask for an item they are blocking, I have never had an issue.
Used to do online shopping at a grocery store so same thing and yes it’s ridiculous. So many days where I never got breaks due to flash orders or constant doordashers. Pushing a massive cart filled to the brim and staying out of a literal horde of other people sucked
They are friendly in my store. I’m only mildly inconvenienced at most, by them being in the aisles. They always try to help, or stay close to the sides when passing, and apologize when blocking or in the way. I generally have the extra 5-10sec it takes to work around them.
It’s not that big of a deal, but I could see them being a problem if they are not being friendly and acting rude. Maybe you need to make a complaint if they are rude or hateful while in the aisles. That’s not cool.
I have literally never once seen a rude ODP employee, I think your local walmart may just suck. But you miss the point of how ODP works. I can realize I need groceries today, pick a slot TODAY, and they have them ready. A big sell is the convenience AND speed. If they restricted to overnight picking only, they lose a lot of the benefit.
My wife did picking for Target for a little while. They did twice the sales of the registers. This isn’t going anywhere.
Next time they give some lip just pop a few random items in the baskets. I’m not sure what will happen but I’m sure it’s an inconvenience some how.
They’re not that intrusive. Those aisles are big enough.
As a former OPD (not ODP) associate, I understand, BUT… the quicker customers just get the fuck out of our way and let us scan the items we need, the quicker we can move on to the next isle.
Customers will stand there for upwards of several minutes trying to choose what kind of bread or cereal they wanna buy. Assuming things are mostly stocked correctly and assuming the personal shopper isn’t inexperienced, they usually only need a few minutes in one isle.
I think the biggest issue is the department’s high turnover rate and lack of real training, leading to a lot of rookie order pickers that just don’t have things down yet, because it takes time to really learn the store and get fast at the job.
Also, I’ve never seen an order picker block off their entire isle with those giant carts, but I’ve seen COUNTLESS customers (usually Gen X/Boomers) block off everyone with their carts, seemingly intentionally.
ODP changes my bi-weekly grocery shopping from 1-2 hours in store, to a 15 minute pickup.
I don’t see why anyone is still shopping in store unless it is for something very specific or a small order.
Even Aldi in my area does this. i think you’re just SOL on this being reversed.
This is my unpopular opinion too! I only buy online now because there’s no point to go inside, I can never navigate because of all the online shoppers.
That should apply to all stores. I also think that customers should pay a service fee for personal shoppers.
I’ve never run into a “hateful” picker and I’m in Walmart at least every other day. Maybe you’re an asshole?
“Honey, wake up, we gotta get to Walmart for our 3 AM pickup spot.”
Aside from the many advantages other people have listed here, there’s a distinct disadvantage to doing ODP orders overnight when the store is closed. Perishable products. If the store is closed from 9pm to 9am, you can’t pull any perishable foods for an order and have it sitting around unless they converted part of the store into a giant cooler to hold all those orders until the customer comes to pick them up, either in store or at one of the many pick up parking spaces in front of the store.
While I don’t agree with your original statement, because they just (have to) during store hours in order to serve their customer, I will say; something needs to change. Our local supermarket is terribly congested with those huge racks, and the personal shopper, or whatever each store calls them, will stand on one side while their cart is on the other and you can’t get through. They drag their moving storage shelves through the store and don’t stop for customers – we have to stop for them; we’re literally in their way. And I get it, they have a job to do. But, in larger markets that can handle it, having a large warehouse that maybe makes several hotshot deliveries per day might be better. Or, somehow remapping the store to allow the personal shoppers to shop from the backside of shelves (an inner hallway if you will) or something. The other alternative is I have to start being a curbside customer and go with the flow… but I’m one of those strange people that enjoys walking around a supermarket and shopping – until these giant carts/mobile shelves started becoming a thing.
Walmart is trash. Stop supporting it.
Im in the UK but do this job.
I try to keep out of everyone’s way, but people suck, so they will always moan, no matter what you do.
Our carts hold up to 8 customers orders (24 for frozen items), so that is up to 8 customers per staff member less in the shop we pick for around 500 customers a day. Just imagine how busier the store would be with all those extra customers.
I’m also timed, I know where most items are, so I am there and gone quicker than it takes you to decide what brand and size of peanut butter you are going to buy.
During the week half of my shift is when the store is closed, so I only have a couple of hours of my shift when the store is open, and my whole shift on Sunday is when the store is closed. We prefer it when the store is closed, we don’t want customers delaying us and asking stupid questions. Plus I get to listen to podcasts and learn while I earn whilst the store is closed.
at my Walmart they made them have a separate line for selfcheckout, and normal shoppers get priority.
I complained about a giant line where they were letting people with a bunch of stuff through, and when it was my turn next the bitch in charge stopped me and let some employee go first with 20+items. “well he works here”
they started enforcing rules after that complaint email
Know what happens if they did that? A lot of people would come into the store and then it’s packed with customers instead. And since one employee is picking for up to eight customers at a time, even if only a third of customers came inside, there would still be more customers added than employees removed.
Their goal is you not coming inside.
There is a better chance that Walmart will close to in person customers, than there is that OPD will pick when the store is closed.
Did that for a job for about 2 months. When picking we can get in trouble for having slow times, that’s why we don’t like being asked to move or help with anything. Anyway, if someone orders something for pickup, you realize they come and get it the same day usually, right? Unless you want to force customers to set up orders a day ahead of time. Same thing for those wanting groceries delivered
UK here so we don’t have Walmart. I’m assuming this is a service where someone pays for their shopping to be delivered to them?
If so, get over it. Over here you can order through the website and it comes from a warehouse and is delivered at a specific requested date and timeframe. You can also order same day though different services depending on the supermarket. These are picked from the shopfloor and delivered asap.
These customers are paying extra for these services and therefore they are also not going instore. You are actually getting a reduction in the amount of people going in store due to these services. Option 1 means fewer people are going to the store whilst option 2 simply replaces the customer with the picker.
In addition customers are far more often the truly ignorant people. I’ve literally been hit by a trolley when I’m standing still reading an item’s packaging. Literally not moving, next to the shelves and some prick can’t be bothered to look where they’re going.
If people in store bother you so much, pay that little bit extra and have it delivered. Save yourself the trouble.
They would lose sales by doing this so it would never happen
Im so glad I have a 24 hour supermarket and can go at 2 am when there are maybe 5 others in the store
What is odd
I agree especially now that Walmart is no longer 24 hours. They could do this during hours they are closed.
I don’t understand why they can’t just pull from the stock room for these. It would probably even make the shopping faster.
It would pretty much be the same if all those online orders were in the store shipping for their items instead.
As a frequent online grocery shopper, I disagree. Sorry it’s annoying to you, I think that’s valid, but with your system I would have to place my order the previous day to get it today, and that would mean every store would have to install massive additional storage, refrigeration and freezing capacity just for storing those orders overnight.
It really doesn’t make sense at all.
The massive number of people NOT shopping in person anymore (like me) definitely make up for the employees shopping on my behalf.
Just say you’re out of touch with the store operations. They get orders throughout the day, tf, what are they gonna do, close the store for an hour every few hours? Dude it’s just extra people in the aisle. You customers aren’t all that good either, being in the middle of the aisle and taking up all the space when you should park your carts on the side, randomly cutting in front of people when you walk out from the aisles, and just as well, y’all get pretty rude when asked to move your cart out of everybody else’s way. I’m glad I got out of Walmart, the majority of customers are awful people. That department you’re frustrated with also has each person shopping for up to 8 people so they have their reasons. I mean f the corporate suits that own Walmart but you complaining about people doing their jobs doesn’t make any workers like you any better either.
Source: worked at Walmart for 4 years
What is ODP?
My take is that they shouldn’t be in the aisles and that Walmart should make it so there’s stock in the back that they can pick from apart from customers. Idk how any of it works so it’s probably unrealistic but I think it’d be a good compromise.
I agree with this. But it wont go away. Its actually the best thing that ever happened to me grocery wise tho. Once i started getting frustrated with wal mart I started going to grocery stores that have far better foods. Its a little more expensive but worth the extra cost for the quality. For instance i never knew jumbo blueberries existed. Haha. And i dont deal with the wal mart headache.
Every single store you go to that does e-commerce has people shopping during store hours. Nothing is going to change that lol plus its what usually makes stores the most money now. I was an assistant store manager in grocery and our e-commerce made at least double what in store would. We’d check in with them every 30 min to hour to make sure it’s okay. Front end? Check if they call. So there is no store that would be interested in your suggestion. My favorite time to shop was before the store opened so customers weren’t in my way 😉 I’ve only experienced customers blocking the way with their carts and bodies, working and as a customer.
Yea lowes and home Depot take up all the cart and aisle lanes for online pick up. It’s ridiculous
am i supposed to just know what ODP is
This is either you blowing a random moment out of proportion because you got a bit annoyed or its an issue with specific employees at your local Walmart in which case there are much more useful places to direct the complaint to 😂
Do you also wish busses wouldn’t exist and everyone should go back to driving an individual car?
People being dicks is one thing – agree completely. But to remove these people shopping for multiple people at once would make the aisles MORE hectic and full, not less.
For every employee doing that, is two people minimum (often more) that aren’t in the store doing the same thing but even worse shopping for themselves.
I don’t use the service myself but it’s literally a win-win.
When I worked in a large grocery store many years ago, shelves were stocked by the night shift. So annoying when aisles are blocked.
Ours are 24 hour stores, never had an issue.
Im a team lead for OPD, and I can tell you it’s more likely Walmart will stop letting customers inside before they scale OPD down to fit overnight.
Talk about first world problems
“Uh one of many giant food buildings in my city, that I can go into and buy as much food as I want, have the food aisle blocked by people getting food.”
Don’t worry, they feel the same way about yall. The amount of people that just stand there slack jawed looking at a shelf for five minutes straight is insane. Not to mention the boomers that stand in the middle of aisles either doing nothing or spending half an hour catching up with friends. At least the workers are grabbing their stuff and moving on.
We have to deal with customers for 8 hours, you have to deal with us for one shopping trip. Take a guess who’s more annoyed at the end of the day.
Same thing if the Person was in the store
If they’re picking then those employees are customers. If they were not there then they would get replaced by even more customers.
This argument makes absolutely no sense and is not practical at all from a business perspective.
Yea I’m disabled. I’m getting my pickup when I need it and when I feel healthy enough to go.
Having worked in the Tesco version of that department, it’s literally not feasible to do it overnight. The night stockers take up so damn much space with their cages of stuff that need to get onto the shop shelves from the warehouse area that the pickers wouldn’t be able to move to do their jobs, plus it would cause major issues with dates on products like fresh berries because they go bad so damn fast, half the time the best you can give is the next day’s date, and picking something at 11pm that’s dated for the next day would be something way too common in this situation. Also, at night, half the stock isn’t even there because it can take a minute to get stuff onto the shelves. Night stockers don’t care if the chicken breasts are all gone, they’ll get to it when they get to it, and going and getting them from the back isn’t a reliable solution to that
They just need to train the workers to quit fucking blocking everything off with their carts. The lack of spacial awareness some of them have is ridiculous.
I have had this issue in other stores as well. It is my great pet peeve that the customers who make the effort to actually come into the stores and do their shopping get penalized for it by being treated like crap by these pickers who are rude, constantly block isles, and will just push in to get what they want.
I have the same beef with online ordering at Starbucks etc. I once went to a Starbucks, was the ONLY person in line, and maybe one or two other people in the store, and waited 15 minutes to get my drink because they were filling online orders!
I know that you know how dumb of a statement that is.
Why would they only allowed Online Delivery and PICK UP orders OUTSIDE of store hours?
There’s unpopular opinions and there’s shtting in your hand and rubbing it allover your computer screen until it seeps through onto Reddit and we’ve reached the latter.
If the employees weren’t there, picking people’s groceries, the actual people ordering the groceries would be there. No space is saved. Nothing changes. This opinion makes no sense.
Turn down an isle.
Can’t get in or navigate it because 6 pickers and three customers are in the aisle
Ask myself why I shop at Walmart.
As someone who worked odp, you’re way off, it’s gonna be the future, people will always pick convenience over anything going in at 5am to start the 200-300 orders we already had for the day and tha be during weekdays
Orders come in at all times. Walk around them cause they ain’t going anywhere.
Yeah. My shopping at Wal Mart ends abruptly if I physically have to go inside store proper. Life gets a little too real with clientele.
Oh no. Absolutely not. I depend on those people.
I refuse to grocery shop in 2025. I use the little app and order my crap on Mondays and pick it up Tuesday mornings. I save probably 4 hours of my life every single week by not having to walk around and gather my stuff and scan it and blah blah blah.
I don’t mind the pickers in the store. What really REALLY pisses me off is that my local WalMart has 75 spots reserved for those picking up with most being empty. That makes it difficult to find a decent parking spot if I want to run inside for a quick purchase.
most are open 24 hours but I’m sure it less crowded after 12am
Who shops in store these days? Eww
I’ve worked as an OPD associate and I’ve shopped in Walmarts while OPD associates were picking orders. They aren’t any more of an inconvenience than other customers are. Their picking carts are taller than regular shopping carts, but I don’t think they’re really any longer or wider (although I’ve admittedly never measured either)
Stockers are more in the way than OPD ever is
“Allowed” is a weird phrasing like they’re just itching to shop someone else’s groceries and for punishment they’re not allowed.
As a retail worker, I absolutely love it when people look me dead in the eyes, and say “they should make you do this at night”, as if we don’t already have a night crew.
I think this actually is a popular opinion. As if other customers being annoying and always in the way weren’t bad enough…
I can’t speak for them all, but at my closest walmart, they are always in the middle of aisles, and always have an AirPod in, on an active phone call. They push those carts so aggressively and pay zero attention to customers in the store. I know it’s a huge part of their income now, but I personally do not shop at Walmart anymore besides my prescriptions, largely in part because I could not shop ever without feeling like I was going to be mowed down. I think ideally it would be great if, in areas where there’s a few fairly close to each other, they would turn one into a warehouse, same stock, and solely do online pickup. They won’t, but that would be my best case scenario lol