Walmart New Cash Rewards Could Help Its Walmart+ Program

Walmart+ has seemed like it's been slow to get off the ground, but momentum finally seems to be building and Walmart is now bringing out the big guns -- cash.

Knowing you can generate cash rewards by shopping (and in the future other ways) is powerful.

The fact that only Walmart+ members can receive these awards -- will it be motivating enough for brands to offer rewards given how early the program is?

How aggressive will Walmart be with early rewards to entice new signups?

Walmart also hints that Walmart+ members could earn rewards in other ways in the future. Which might even mean that these rewards are somewhat of the centerpiece - along with the discount on gas.

I don't care what kind of economic bracket you are in -- cash is cash.

Another interesting element of the program is the company's tie-in with iBotta and allowing brands to offer item-level rewards to members. These rewards will appear in search results.

While this item reward service (and other retail media services) is something that Amazon offers today, Walmart seems to have a partner rather than build approach, which is certainly a faster way to get to market for services that are not truly novel.

That's not to say that Walmart might never build, but learning quickly is also important particularly in an important area of growth for the company -- Walmart+ and ads.