Move Over Amazon Prime. Walmart is ready to take you on. Walmart has been working on an Amazon Prime competitor called Walmart+.
Since its inception in 2005, Amazon Prime has been eating into Walmart’s bottom line. According to eMarketer, Amazon accounts for nearly 40 percent of all online retail sales in the US.
“That pressure has pushed the traditional retailer to burn tens of billions of dollars to fight back while its executives have cycled through various stages of reaction to Prime’s ascent: denial, followed by meek competition, followed by a reversal that seemed to signal Walmart wanted to stick to a free, no-membership strategy,” Vox reported.
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Over the past 18 months, the retailer has been creating its own paid membership program that would have perks that Amazon doesn’t. Look for the world’s biggest brick-and-mortar retailer to roll out the new program next month, according to sources.
“The program is expected to essentially launch as a rebrand of Walmart’s existing Delivery Unlimited service, which charges customers $98 a year for unlimited, same-day delivery of fresh groceries from one of the 1,600-plus Walmart stores in the U.S. where the program is available. The company is also considering launching Walmart+ with a feature that would allow customers to use text messaging to place orders. Sources said that the amount of the Walmart+ fee could still change or the company might test multiple price points,” Vox reported.
The program will eventually add perks such as discounts on prescription drugs at Walmart pharmacies and fuel at gas stations.
A Walmart spokesperson confirmed that a membership program was in development.
Amazon has been chipping away at Walmart’s customer base over the years, and it is hoping Walmart+ will change all of this.
“In recent years, Amazon has also made moves for Prime to appeal to households with less disposable income that historically have favored shopping at Walmart. Amazon added a monthly payment option for Prime fees in 2016, a 45 percent Prime fee discount for those on government assistance in 2017, and ways for Prime customers to pay for orders with cash. Today, more than half of Walmart’s top-spending families are Amazon Prime members, according to sources. While Walmart’s overall grocery business is larger than Amazon’s, one fear is that top customers could eventually turn to Amazon for groceries as they get sucked further into the Prime suite of perks,” Vox reported.
