Who in their right mind would go up against Amazon in the e-commerce market? As insane as it sounds, Walmart is up to the challenge.
On January 31st, Walmart announced that the were going to attempt to level the playing field. The company is offering free two-day shipping on over two million products.
It looks like Amazon Prime, but there are a few twists:
- Walmart isn’t charging a membership fee. Amazon Prime is $99 per year, or $10.99 per month.
- Walmart requires a minimum $35 purchase to get free two-day shipping. Amazon Prime has no minimum purchase level.
- Walmart’s offer covers about two million items. Amazon Prime reportedly includes 40 million items.
Anybody who shops online, especially with Amazon, knows that Amazon offers Prime members other benefits beyond free two-day shipping, such as free same-day deliver in certain areas, free two-hour delivery in some areas via its Prime Now product, unlimited media streaming via Prime Video and Prime Music, Amazon Dash button ordering and more.
With the success of Prime, Analysts have estimated that Prime has 65 million members in the US who spend $1,200 per year with Amazon. This is double of what non-Prime customers spend. On one recent survey, it was reveled that 30 percent of Prime members place at least one order per week from Amazon.
Walmart’s head of US e-commerce, Marc Lore, says today’s shipping announcement “is the first of many moves we will be making to enhance the customer experience and accelerate growth.” He also called free two-day shipping “table stakes” in today’s e-commerce landscape. Lore is the co-founder of Jet.com, the e-commerce startup that Walmart bought last year.