Walmart Plus: Needed but not yet competitive enough.

Walmart finally announced its loyalty program, and rather than recounting the benefits, here are a few areas where it falls short.

1. There are essentially 3 benefits (fuel is the only unique one - and if you are a wholesale club member already, that’s not that unique) whereas Prime has 20+ benefits for members.

2. The Walmart Plus marketing team is still out to lunch. After 6 months of teasing and delays, the Walmart Plus landing page still doesn't have an e-mail signup for interested parties? Feels like a big miss.

3. How are we in 2020 and the largest retailer in the world is just now launching a US-centric loyalty program for the first time? Amazon launched Prime in 2007.

Reminds me of Microsoft's response to AWS - 6 years late. Sometimes Amazon wins by showing up to the game early and steadily improving while their competition just stands on the sideline. Welcome to 2020 Walmart!

Gavin at Acenda weighed in, saying “After speaking with a few people in the industry: I’m told that Walmart+ has one primary purpose and that’s to protect their grocery business. I don’t think they need a lot of bells and whistles. I have faith that it’ll be a smashing hit…According to 3rd party research, Walmart’s prices (in-store) are lower than Amazon — 10% to 30%. Now, throw in free delivery. There’s arguably some other positive externalities, eg environmental benefits too…Walmart’s purchasing power is unmatched. As long as they stay focused, their low prices combined with store logistics will challenge, and if handled well, ultimately defeat Amazon. I’m seeing early signs of this happening.”

I admire Gavin’s optimism, though I’m not sure I share it in this case. Rafael Zimberhoff shared a different perspective: “The other thing Amazon does well is stack. In this case, they just keep stacking benefits onto Prime, making it a brainless decision for consumers. Loyalty programs on line don't really map to brick and mortar loyalty programs. On line is a different animal--much more flexible and potentially amazing (if you do all the work!). So this might be the result of either insufficient investment (in time, energy, dollars) or a lack of perspective on the power of on line. It is also worth remembering that Amazon subsidized Prime for years by subsidizing shipping. How many orgs are going to burn money like that? To hopefully catch up? I estimate that firms interested in profit may not be up to burning cash in that way.”

All told, too little and too late.