11 Common Customer Complaints About Walmart's Groceries

Walmart is one of the largest and most prevalent big-box store chains in the United States, and as the brand and its customer base have grown over the years, that level of ubiquity has its downsides. With over 4,500 Walmart locations nationwide and over six decades of household-name recognition, grievances from Walmart shoppers are practically inevitable. Many of these complaints center around the grocery aspect of the big box store, which was an element introduced with the unveiling of the Walmart Supercenter in 1988. Prior to the late 1980s, Walmart focused on offering home goods, tools, toys, and other non-food items at affordable costs. 

In the first five years of being in business, a total of 24 Walmart stores pulled in a staggering $12.7 million in sales. The chain store's sales continued to skyrocket as the Walmart brand gained American customers' trust for the store's affordability and the quality of its generic Great Value products. 

For some food shoppers, Walmart groceries are worth every penny. For others, they can't get past common complaints like unsatisfactory pickup orders, questionable produce selection, and a general rise in prices. After searching all corners of the internet for the word on Walmart, we've gathered the most common complaints Walmart shoppers have about the store's groceries.

Starting in the 1990s, Walmart began using the term "everyday low prices" to describe the practice of setting low prices to encourage customer interaction and, in the long term, loyalty. The big box store has long leaned on its relatively low prices to stand out among its competitors, but recently, customers feel like it's delivering on this wallet-friendly promise less and less. Items like ground beef at Walmart are no cheaper than at other stores, and with poorer quality, too.

Many Walmart customers have complained about "outrageous" costs. Noticing a price increase of as much as 100% for some of their go-to grocery items, one Reddit user wrote, "I think I will be shopping the supermarkets and buying more brand name since it's only one or two bucks more than these generic Walmart products."

Another wary customer on Facebook wrote, "Walmart claims to be lower prices & people don't question it until they start comparing," explaining that the prices are surprisingly high next to other stores. They added, "Waltons are getting richer by the day by unsuspecting customers."

Walmart first began carrying food items in the late 1980s, with the introduction of Walmart Supercenters. In the decades since, many customers have had unsatisfactory experiences and witnessed red flags in the store's produce department. While rotting fruits and vegetables are an inevitable and sometimes unavoidable occurrence in the produce section, Walmart customers seem to have found bad produce in-store with alarming frequency.

From lemons to papayas to grapefruits to watermelons to berries, countless customers have shared their unpleasant experiences finding moldy, discolored, and rotten produce while shopping. Customer experiences can and often do vary by store, but for many Walmart shoppers, the quality of produce at the big box chain just isn't worth the price. 

"I find their vegetables not the best quality and not cheap," one Reddit user wrote. Another customer on Facebook agrees, describing vegetables they bought from Walmart as "slimy, brown and disgusting," saying that it was "the THIRD time in a row they were so rotten," and that they needed to get a refund.

In the mid-2010s, Walmart began offering pickup orders that allowed customers to shop online, after which a Walmart associate would select and bag the order for the customer to collect. Walmart presented this option as an alternative to in-store shopping, but while many have found it convenient, just as many seem to have had poor experiences with the shopping etiquette of their Walmart pickup shoppers.

Walmart customers frequently complain about the quality and quantity of food items their pickup shoppers select for them. Canned goods have shown up damaged to the point of compromising the integrity of the contents, ruining the food altogether. Shoppers have also complained about their pickup shoppers selecting rotten produce and other expired food items, like premade dips and other pre-packaged foods.

Other online shoppers have noticed their pickup orders arriving poorly bagged. Some noticed their pickup shoppers placed raw meat next to raw produce, potentially contaminating the fruit.

Buying groceries can already feel stressful and time-consuming in a day jam-packed with other errands and obligations. According to many Walmart shoppers, the environment of this big-box store only adds to the stress. "Walmart is quite possibly the worst place on the planet to go into," one shopper wrote on Facebook. "Immediately overstimulated, anxious, and angry."

Customers often complain about the bright fluorescent lights and the noise of fellow shoppers (or, more specifically, the shoppers' children). The sheer number of shoppers can be a major grievance, too. One Threads user shared similar sentiments, saying that "the Walmart Supercenters are so overstimulating," adding, "I felt like I was about to accidentally play bumper carts with everyone I encountered."

Dealing with sensory overload for any amount of time is generally unpleasant, but if it feels like it lasts an especially long time in Walmart, you might not be imagining things. Walmart uses many psychological tricks to keep you shopping for longer, from specific display arrangements to the number of products to tactical sights and smells.

In a store as big as a Walmart Supercenter, sometimes it's faster to find an associate who can help you locate something than it is to try to find it yourself. However, customers have found that more often than not, this idea only works in theory. Actually finding an associate to help you while you shop can feel impossible.

Walmart floor associates are expected to handle multiple job duties at once, including stocking, cleaning, and assisting customers. According to multiple unhappy customers on online forums, not all Walmart associates are living up to the last task. Some customers have reported walking through multiple store departments in search of an associate, with none to be found. Others managed to find an associate but found the experience to be unhelpful.

Per a Walmart employee on Reddit, customers can chalk it up to bad luck. "When I covered electronics I would stand there waiting for customers and have nobody show up for about 30 minutes so I decided I would go zone in the aisles in stationary," they explained, saying that "every time without fail a customer would show up needing my help the moment I decided to do something else."

Walmart's inventory system keeps track of store stock that is sold and stock that mysteriously disappears when customers help themselves to a five-finger discount. Based on this data, stores will lock certain merchandise that tends to go missing more often than others. 

Because it's based on individual stores' data, inventory that remains under lock and key can and often does differ from one location to the next. For Walmart customers, that means an inconsistent and unreliable level of access to a wide variety of items, from hair care to sporting goods to toys to health supplies. The last of these can be especially troubling for customers, as shoppers have less access to crucial items like baby formula, condoms, and pregnancy tests.

Obtaining access to merchandise in locked cabinets requires the assistance of a floor associate, and many customers complain about how long it takes to find someone who can help. Some store locations require the floor associate to carry the merchandise with the customer to the checkout line, which can be irksome to shoppers.

The Walmart checkout process has evolved over the years, from individual lines with employees working a cash register to self-checkout kiosks (where it can be easy to make mistakes) and entire self-checkout conveyor belt lanes. These newer options have customers scan and bag their own groceries while cameras monitor the shoppers to prevent shoplifting. With everyone bagging their own groceries, the theory is that the checkout line will move more swiftly. Customers aren't convinced.

Even with self-checkout and employee-checkout options available, many customers report long lines to get to a cash register. According to a former employee on Reddit, the reason for these long delays is "a combination of being short staffed due to high turn over, and management prioritizing zoning the floor over cashiering." They elaborate that, "Cashiers also got paid more and they really didn't want too many people solely cashiering when there's other stuff to be done."

Ironically, some Walmart locations have also begun shutting down self-checkout kiosks due to an increase in shoplifting. Walmart has acknowledged and responded to customers' complaints online before, though it's unclear what, if any, remediations were done for the complainant.

Whenever a Walmart customer encounters a major grievance, a common first reaction is to contact customer service to try to solve or compensate for the issue. However, numerous online users have cited poor communication channels with Walmart customer service staff, with the first line of defense being AI-generated support. These automated responses are often unhelpful and annoying.

Some customers have even reported human personnel transferring them back to an AI-generated support line when they fail to reach a resolution. One Reddit user recalled getting a human customer service representative, but they added that this representative blamed a colleague for the customer's complaint, saying, "When the agents themselves are throwing each other under the bus, how are we supposed to be able to trust anything any of them tell us?"

A Walmart customer on Facebook shared their concern about a troubling experience while using the Walmart customer service chat feature. "I was in a customer service chat with a human when he asked for the order number. I didn't respond, I minimized the window to copy and paste it. Heard multiple dings and thought he was following up," an anonymous participant posted in an anti-AI Facebook group. "Opened the window back up...and the chat had sent multiple messages ON MY BEHALF saying it would get the order info for him."

Walmart door greeters are positioned at the front entrances of the stores for a couple of different reasons. From a hospitality perspective, greeters help welcome shoppers into the store with a smile and a hello. From an anti-theft perspective, greeters help prevent shoplifting by checking receipts of customers leaving the store. These checks involve greeters quickly reviewing the listed items on the receipt, reviewing the items visible in the cart, and looking for discrepancies. However, some customers feel as though Walmart greeters pick and choose whose receipts they check arbitrarily. 

One shopper shared an experience with a Walmart associate she described as "overly aggressive" on Quora. She said this employee would almost always stop her at the entrance and "physically go through all the bags in my cart and touch all my food," going on to say that, "I also started to notice he would stop me in particular." Eventually, the customer told another associate at the store, after which the incidents with the greeter stopped.

Other customers have reported being blocked from the exit door by employees checking their receipts or receiving bad attitudes from the greeters while the shoppers struggle to find their receipt. Many customers opt to ignore the greeters altogether, which is technically legal. However, these associates might take a refusal as probable cause to search your cart more thoroughly.

Complaints about grocery shopping at Walmart have become so commonplace that many shoppers will opt to purchase their items online for pickup or delivery. This comes with its own set of grievances and hurdles, though, many of which customers have shared in negative reviews online. Not only do online shoppers have to deal with problems directly related to the store. But with pickup and delivery orders, these shoppers also contend with potential issues with the personal shoppers gathering their orders.

Customers have reported unwanted cancellations of large orders, some of which happen due to contaminated orders that personal shoppers cancel of their own volition. One ex-customer on Reddit recalled ordering $425 worth of groceries and having the order cancelled without their permission. They said getting a refund for their order was a major hassle, adding, "It was enough for me to call it quits on Walmart forever."

Even the physical act of putting together pickup and delivery orders is a pain for both in-person Walmart customers and store associates. Several Walmart customers have said that pickup order carts are bulky and hard to navigate around. "Even other Walmart employees hate [Online, Pickup, and Delivery]," one associate wrote on Reddit.

For some consumers, their biggest complaints about Walmart have nothing to do with store stock, associates, or prices. These shoppers refuse to buy their groceries at Walmart for moral reasons. Customers have cited many of these, including lining billionaires' pockets, settling for lower-quality items just because of their low costs, and putting smaller local stores out of business — and there are plenty of excellent local grocery stores you can visit instead.

Other customers prefer to shop at other national grocery chains that treat their employees fairly, including in general daily work life and overall compensation. Some other big-picture issues people have with Walmart include predatory pricing, sexual harassment lawsuits, and anti-union behavior like outsourcing (or even closing) departments that tried to unionize.

"I try to avoid Walmart like the plague," one consumer wrote on Reddit. "For me it is a moral/ethical issue." Another Reddit user wrote that the store "is the end result of a system designed to reward unethical production of consumer goods," citing the ethical sacrifices consumers are expected to make for their groceries.