You likely didn't order from the Walmart.com retailer. Instead, it was likely from a Pro seller or ordinary 3rd party seller. This is the largest source of confusion for shoppers on Amazon. So much so that Amazon now offers $1000 if a 3rd party harms an individual. [1]

I think the UI that combines the 3rd party sellers with the Walmart/Amazon corporation retailer, is deliberately made confusing. I believe over voice, like when using Alexa, it is even more unclear what vendor is being ordered from.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-compensation-third-pa...

It is Non-Desktop Web Browser interfaces that are the problem.

Mobile Site, Mobile Apps, Alexa, etc make it very hard to see who the vendor it, I do not have this problem on the Traditional Full Size Browser Amazon.com site

It was ordered directly from the Walmart website and arrived in an Amazon package with zero mention of the Walmart "seller". The Amazon product was listed by an actual brand.

IMO it was a clear case of someone doing arbitrage across ecom platforms. As a first time Walmart+ customer it certainly tarnishes my desire to ever order from there again.

It most definitely is arbitrage. The Walmart website supports a marketplace. So ordering from the website doesn't mean much these days unless you specifically look for the caption "Sold by Walmart.com"

Otherwise, like I have realized, you might as well just buy from eBay.

My wife just had exactly the opposite experience. She ordered something from Amazon and it came in a Walmart box, directly from Walmart with no mention of the Amazon seller on the shipping label.

Against Amazon's rules, for sure.

Interestingly, the price was lower on Walmart.com but my wife had not checked first. But it was only $2.50 less. I have no idea how that worked out as profitable for the 'drop shipper' (in quotes because this kind of drop shipping is IMO not legitimate).

I knew a guy a few years ago who was dropshipping like this, making ~$4k/month as a side hustle. He had a couple employees in the Philippines handling the ordering. Basically using Amazon FBA to leverage Amazon's UI/UX to sell people stuff at Wal-Mart prices.

I recently ordered directly from a company's website (it was listed on the product's packaging, so I'm fairly confident it wasn't a third party seller), as it was a little cheaper than ordering from Amazon. It still ended up being delivered directly from Amazon.