Walmart Scrubs ShippingPass In Favor Of Free Two-Day Shipping
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Walmart takes on Amazon with new shipping program.
Watch out, Amazon: Walmart’s gloves are off and the retail giant is ready for a fight for customers. Just eighteen months after introducing its ShippingPass program, Walmart has scrubbed the member’s only subscription program in favor of a new shipping service available to all Walmart customers.
An announcement on the Walmart website explained, “Effective, 1/31/17, ShippingPass is no longer available. Now, all Walmart.com customers can enjoy Every Day Low Prices with the convenience of fast, FREE 2-Day Shipping on eligible orders without a membership fee. 2-Day Shipping covers more items than ShippingPass, click here to learn more about our 2-Day Shipping offer.”
The company thanked its active ShippingPass subscribers for their help in developing the new program, and is fully refunding all ShippingPass subscriptions for active members. It also lowered the minimum purchase requirement for free shipping from $50 to $35. Items shipping to stores have no minimum price threshold.
The new program, open to all Walmart customers, is one part of a growing strategy to compete with Amazon, whose Amazon Prime offers unlimited two-day shipping and other perks to customers for $99 a year. In a conference call, Marc Lore, CEO of Walmart US eCommerce explained that as two-day shipping becomes a customer expectation, “we don’t think it’s necessary to charge a membership for it.”
To execute on the two-day promise, Wal-Mart said it will be relying on its five fulfillment center campuses, located in places like Dallas and Atlanta as well as a network of other warehouses and centers. As of Feb. 1, Wal-Mart’s fulfillment centers will be combined with Jet.com’s, though from the consumer-facing side, the two brands will remain separate, according to Lore.
Nearly 2 million of the most popular items sold by Walmart will be eligible for the newly expanded shipping program. “The vast majority of sales” that Wal-Mart rings up online include many of these two million items, said Lore. “We think this is going to dramatically accelerate growth. There won’t be too many products that you’ll want that won’t be available for two-day shipping.”
Walmart also offers same-day store pickup on a number of items, and offers online grocery pickup in more than 600 locations.