Walmart Plus Takes on Amazon Prime with Cheaper $98 Membership Fee

During the covid-19 pandemic, Walmart has grown in ten folds as the shoppers preferred online orders to avoid social contact and to maintain social distancing. It has proved to be an outstanding merchandize for satisfying the immediate needs of the customers.

Now Walmart has included some more items in its shopping list so as to meet the requirements of the online shoppers. It has also started maintaining quick pace in supplying the orders up-to $35 as well as cashier-less checkout feature in the Walmart app.

Without any additional cost, according to the new program, rules will include faster shipping as well as deliveries for members of 160,000 items arriving as fast as the same day. But as mentioned above, the minimum cost should be $35, the same minimum with delivery unlimited.

For millions of items, all the non-members are currently getting free two-day deliveries on orders of $35 or more. For only specific zip zones, the free next-day delivery for non-members will also be available.

And now the in-store customers will now have access to “scan & go” latest feature that will let them scan their items with their respective smartphones and thereafter pay the amount using the Walmart pay app as it allows them to avoid the checkout line.

Since 2018, in Sam’s Club,Walmart was testing out similar cashier-less technology. These kinds of contactless payments are especially useful during the pandemic to help customers maintaining he social distancing and also avoiding touching payment terminals or any other shared surfaces.

Not only this, even now Walmart is offering a fuel discount of up to 5 cents a gallon at about 2,000 Walmart, Murphy Express and also Murphy USA locations. And to that list Sam’s club stations will also be added soon.

Neil Saunders, an analyst at research firm GlobalData said that his sense is they are going to do a bit more to entice people into this, because as it stands it’s not a bad program but it’s not a great program either, when you look at Amazon Prime, which is just light-years ahead.

As the shoppers are already budgeted for Prime, Spotify, Costco, Netflix and many other services, he added that Walmart will face an uphill battle against “subscription fatigue”.

More benefits will be introduced to Walmart Plus, even so she avoided offering any specifics.