Walmart Inc.'s much-anticipated subscription service Walmart Plus will start nationwide Sept. 15, the company said Monday.
Though the service has been hyped as a competitor to Amazon's Prime membership, Janey Whiteside, Walmart's chief customer officer, said the company is "not launching Walmart Plus with the intent to compete with anything else.
"We are launching it to meet the needs of our customers," Whiteside said, "and it really was designed to make their busy lives easier. We think that it offers a comprehensive suite of in-store and online benefits that help people save time and money across a variety of areas."
Program benefits "won't be static," Whiteside said, but will evolve based on customer needs and feedback. Initially, they will include unlimited free delivery of groceries and general merchandise on orders of $35 or more. About 150,000 items in stores will be available for delivery to members, including some toys and electronics, she said.
Another perk is a 5-cent-per-gallon discount on gas bought at Walmart stations, and Sam's Club stations will soon be added, Whiteside said. Members will also see the return of Scan & Go, a technology tried at Walmart but largely rejected by customers.
However, members of Sam's Club, Walmart's members-only warehouse division, embraced Scan & Go. Customers use an app on their mobile devices to scan items as they shop and to check out when they're finished. Whiteside said this "touch-free payment experience" is more important to shoppers as the nation continues to battle the covid-19 pandemic.
Walmart Plus will cost the same as the Bentonville-based retailer's Delivery Unlimited program: $98 a year, or $12.95 a month, plus a 15-day free trial membership. Shoppers already using Delivery Unlimited will be enrolled in Walmart Plus automatically, Whiteside said, giving them the added benefits at no additional cost.
Sucharita Kodali, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, said she expects the service to be a big success.
"Americans love loyalty programs, and all our data says that they can't have too many of them," Kodali said. "Walmart is ubiquitous, and the ability to save money on things like fuel will be big drivers of adoption and likely incrementally too."
With the service's debut coming after months of speculation and anticipation, Whiteside said the company decided this was the right time to bring it to market.
"We've been contemplating this program for a period of time," Whiteside said, "but we wanted to be sure we were offering what was best for our customers." Testing around the country elicited positive feedback as well as increased tickets per trip or delivery, she said, and the pandemic spurred many shoppers to turn to pickup and delivery options.
Carol Spieckerman, a retail consultant and president of Spieckerman Retail, sees another reason for the September start date.
"Walmart clearly wants to get the program off the ground sooner [rather] than later in order to make hay in advance of the Christmas shopping season," she said. "The pressure is on from a timing standpoint."
Spieckerman expects to see the service emphasize convenience across categories "to ensure that low-margin grocery sales don't sit in a silo." And she sees Walmart starting out with a solid base and adding upgrades to the membership as tests earn rollout status and deals are finalized.
As for what those future benefits might be, Spieckerman said Walmart's new pilot with Instacart and news about its bid for social media platform TikTok "hint at the possibilities."
Whatever the future brings, Spieckerman said, "Walmart Plus offers a real opportunity for the company to continue its odds-beating momentum through 2020 and beyond."
Walmart shares fell $1.45, or 1%, to close Monday at $138.85. Amazon.com shares rose $49.16, or 1.5%, to close at $3,450.96. Information about the Walmart Plus start date was released after the market closed.