Walmart is attempting to solve one of the biggest pain-points of online shopping — the dreaded return — with a new service.
The retailer announced Monday that it will pick up items shipped and sold by Walmart.com from customers' homes through a new partnership with FedEx. Walmart said the "incredibly convenient" option is free and will remain in place beyond the busy holiday shopping season.
To use the new service, called "Carrier Pickup by FedEx," customers have the initiate return process on Walmart's website or app, schedule a date for pickup and print a label. Then it will be picked up by a FedEx employee.
For those that don't have a printer, customers can also make a return at any of the roughly 2,000 US FedEx Office locations by getting a QR code from Walmart's website and a FedEx employee will print a free return label and ship it back — a similar service that is already offered by Amazon and UPS.
From press release: Just in time for the busy holiday return season, we are excited to announce that customers can return items purchased online* (shipped and sold by .com) without ever having to leave home. Now, customers can schedule a return through our new service, Carrier Pickup by FedEx, which is an incredibly convenient way to make that unwanted gift *magically* disappear. Even more magical, this new return option is not only super-easy but also free, and here to stay beyond the holiday season.
The new shipping options comes as Walmart's US online sales soared 79% in the most recent quarter, signaling that it's in the midst of another strong holiday season especially as people shift their habits online during the pandemic.
Walmart is attempting to heed off challenges from its largest rival, Amazon. Customers who buy items on amazon can drop off packages without a box or label at some Whole Foods markets, Kohl's and UPS stores and lockers. Some items are also eligible to be picked up at home through UPS with a fee.
FedEx also recently partnered with Happy Returns, an e-commerce return technology company, to return products in person without a box or label from various retailers.
Companies are tweaking and enhancing its parcel delivery services "in order to remain an attractive partner with those shippers," Matthew Young, equity analyst at Morningstar Research Services, previously told CNN Business.
15 gifts for those who miss board games with friends
15 gifts for those who miss board games with friends
Fort
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From the creators of Root comes Fort, a 2-4 player card game about building forts and following friends.
In Fort, you're a kid! And like many kids, you want to grow your circle of friends, collect pizza and toys, and build the coolest fort.
By doing this cool stuff, you'll score victory points, and at the end of the game, the player with the most victory points wins! Your cards not only let you take actions on your own turn, but also let you follow the other players' actions on their turns. Will you devote yourself to your own posse, or copy what the other kids are doing?
But be careful as your carefully constructed deck might start losing cards if you don't actually use them. After all, if you don't play with your friends, why should they hang out with you anymore?
Wingspan
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Wingspan is a competitive, medium-weight, card-driven, engine-building board game from Stonemaier Games. It's designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and features over 170 birds illustrated by Natalia Rojas and Ana Maria Martinez.
You are bird enthusiasts—researchers, bird watchers, ornithologists, and collectors—seeking to discover and attract the best birds to your network of wildlife preserves. Each bird extends a chain of powerful combinations in one of your habitats (actions). These habitats focus on several key aspects of growth:
- Gain food tokens via custom dice in a birdfeeder dice tower
- Lay eggs using egg miniatures in a variety of colors
- Draw from hundreds of unique bird cards and play them
The winner is the player with the most points after 4 rounds.
Hocus Pocus
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In this cooperative card game, players work together to protect Salem’s children and stop the Sanderson sisters from completing their wicked potion before the sun rises. Play potion ingredients to the cauldron and match all the colors or ingredients.
Binx will offer a helping hand, while Winifred, Mary, and Sarah cast spells to thwart your plans. Use tricks like Burning Rain of Death and Billy Butcherson to help you along the way!
Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion
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Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion is a standalone game that takes place before the events of Gloomhaven. The game includes four new characters — Valrath Red Guard (tank, crowd control), Inox Hatchet (ranged damage), Human Voidwarden (support, mind-control), and Quatryl Demolitionist (melee damage, obstacle manipulation) — that can also be used in the original Gloomhaven game.
The game also includes 16 monster types (including seven new standard monsters and three new bosses) and a new campaign with 25 scenarios that invites the heroes to investigate a case of mysterious disappearances within the city. Is it the work of Vermlings, or is something far more sinister going on?
Wizard Kittens.jpg
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Wizard Kittens is a semi-cooperative set collection card game. Players are wizard kittens who have accidentally released a few curses from the library's restricted section. Now they must defeat the curses before they're caught by the librarian, Professor Whispurr.
Each turn plays quickly but offers interesting decisions, most often around which spell to use and how to use it. Spells allow kittens to draw extra cards, sling cards at other players, discard cards out of their own play areas, or trade any two cards in play. No player can use the same spell two turns in a row, either.
The game ends when either the last of the six curses is defeated, or when the Professor Whispurr card is drawn from the ritual component deck. If the kittens defeated the last curse, then they tally up points (including a secret objective Extra Credit card), and the highest score wins. If they are caught by Professor Whispurr, then the Cleanest Paws Clause applies. All kittens with 10 or more points lose, and from those who are left, the kitten with the fewest cards in their play area wins.
Alma Mater
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Alma Mater has players serving as a headmaster of one of the independent universities in the 15th century. Players seek to strengthen their school's reputation and standing. To achieve these goals, players need to recruit the best staff and students, exchange knowledge with other schools, and become experts in the school's four disciplines!
Mariposas
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Every spring, millions of monarch butterflies leave Mexico to spread out across eastern North America. Every fall, millions fly back to Mexico. However, no single butterfly ever makes the round trip.
Mariposas is a game of movement and set collection that lets players be part of this amazing journey.
Mariposas is played in three seasons. In general, your butterflies try to head north in spring, spread out in summer, and return south in fall. The end of each season brings a scoring round, and at the end of fall, the player with the most successful family of butterflies — i.e., the most victory points — wins the game.
Cake Duel
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A two-player game that is a current favorite. Cake Duel is a fast paced card game. Players play the role of opposing Sheepie generals in the grand tournament of cakes.
Players start a round with several cake tokens each and take turns playing Sheepie cards to steal cakes from the other player. The first player to take all the cakes wins the round. The first player to win three rounds wins the duel. The catch is that all cards are played face down, so any card can be bluffed as any other card, and all plays can be challenged, instantly ending the round. Each round comes with new opportunities to make tricky plays and mind game the other player. Experienced players can also keep track of which cards have been played and bluff strategically to strengthen their attacks.
New York Zoo
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In New York Zoo, you are designing an animal park. Build enclosures, introduce new animals, and raise their offspring. The first player to cover all the construction spaces on their zoo board with Enclosure Tiles and Attractions wins the game.
Gameplay is straightforward as you have only two options on your turn: build a new enclosure in your zoo, or populate your zoo with more animals. But be sure to time your actions well since you want your zoo to participate in as many animal breedings as possible.
Parks
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PARKS is a celebration of the US National Parks featuring illustrious art from Fifty-Nine Parks.
In PARKS, players will take on the role of two hikers as they trek through different trails across four seasons of the year. While on the trail, these hikers will take actions and collect memories of the places your hikers visit. These memories are represented by various resource tokens like mountains and forests. Collecting these memories in sets will allow players to trade them in to visit a National Park at the end of each hike.
Each trail represents one season of the year, and each season, the trails will change and grow steadily longer. The trails, represented by tiles, get shuffled in between each season and laid out anew for the next round. Resources can be tough to come by especially when someone is at the place you’re trying to reach! Campfires allow you to share a space and time with other hikers. Canteens and Gear can also be used to improve your access to resources through the game. It’ll be tough to manage building up your engine versus spending resources on parks, but we bet you’re up to the challenge. Welcome to PARKS!
Unmatched: Battle of Legends, Volume One
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In battle, there are no equals.
Unmatched is a highly asymmetrical miniature fighting game for two or four players. Each hero is represented by a unique deck designed to evoke their style and legend. Tactical movement and no-luck combat resolution create a unique play experience that rewards expertise, but just when you've mastered one set, new heroes arrive to provide all new match-ups.
Battle of Legends, Volume One features four heroes. King Arthur sacrifices cards to power up his attacks and gets some timely assistance from Merlin's magic. Alice is back from Wonderland with a giant vorpal blade and the Jabberwock by her side as she grows and shrinks to gain advantages on attack and defense. Medusa is happy to attack from range and let her harpies hound you, but just one devastating glance could end the battle quickly. Sinbad grows in power as he gains experience on each of his voyages.
Cosmic Frog
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Cosmic Frog is a game of collection, combat, and theft on a planetary scale. Each player controls a two-mile-tall, immortal, invulnerable frog-like creature that exists solely to gather terrain from the Shards of Aeth, the fragments of a long-ago shattered world. The First Ones seek to use the lands from the Shards to reconstruct the world of Aeth, and your frogs are their terrain harvesters.
Beyond the Sun
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As Earth begins to die, it is time for humanity to look Beyond the Sun
The faction leaders that once ruled the planet separately, now work together to develop cutting-edge technology and explore the depths of space. However, only one leader will truly reign supreme in these new worlds. Will it be you?
Pandemic
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Four diseases have broken out in the world and it is up to a team of specialists in various fields to find cures for these diseases before mankind is wiped out. Players must work together playing to their characters' strengths and planning their strategy of eradication before the diseases overwhelm the world with ever-increasing outbreaks. For example the operation specialist can build research stations which are needed to find cures for the diseases. The Scientist needs only 4 cards of a particular disease to cure it instead of the normal 5. But the diseases are out breaking fast and time is running out: The team must try to stem the tide of infection in diseased areas while also towards cures. A truly cooperative game where you all win or you all lose.
