Retail

Walmart.com Lowers Prices of a Million Items When Customers Pick Up at Stores

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: April 12, 2017 6:35 am

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 1:04 pm

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) has created a new way for customers to save money. People who order any of over a million products at Walmart.com can receive a discount if they pick up the items at Wal-Mart locations.

The new program is called “Pick Up Discount” and will cover about 10,000 items at first. The program begins April 19. Wal-Mart said the plan would expand to more than a million items by the end of June.

In a note to the press, Wal-Mart’s U.S. e-commerce CEO Marc Lore said:

We’re creating price transparency to empower customers to shop smarter and choose what’s best for them. Now, they can either pick up and save even more money, or ship two-day for free to home, without paying for a membership.

The Walmart membership plan was aimed at Amazon.com Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) Prime service. It was called Shipping Pass. Wal-Mart killed the plan in January, but it continued to have some members.

Wal-Mart also said one of the reasons for the new Pick Up Discount was because of lessons learned from a company it recently purchased:

With Pickup Discount, we are beginning to take the ethos behind Jet’s Smart Cart and marrying it with Walmart’s operational efficiency to bring price transparency to life at Walmart.com.

Wal-Mart bought the fast growing Jet e-commerce business in August for $3.3 billion. Lore was the CEO of Jet before the transaction.