Walmart plans to take a page out of Amazon’s book and offer free shipping to subscribers who pay an annual fee. But Walmart’s service will be half the price of an Amazon Prime membership… and it also won’t include as many goodies.
For $99 per year Amazon Prime members get free 2-day shipping on many items, plus the ability to watch thousands of movies and TV shows, stream thousands of songs, and if they’ve got a Kindle device they can also borrow an eBook per month.
Walmart is just focusing on shipping: The Information reports (and the AP confirms) that Walmart customers will be able to pay $50 per year to get free shipping on more than a million items the retailer stocks. Those products will be delivered in 3 days or less.
The company does own online video service Vudu, but Walmart has no plans to bundle internet video streaming with its shipping subscription offering.
Walmart is expected to launch a limited beta of the program within weeks. Initially you’ll need an invitation to use Walmart’s $50 per year shipping service.
Walmart isn’t the first company to offer a cheaper alternative to Amazon Prime. Last year Newegg launched its own $50 per year 3-day shipping service called Newegg Premier.
Can a “Report Spam” button be added to each comment?
There should be a “flag as inappropriate” option. I’ve just tweaked my settings so that I should get an email when someone hits that button.
Spam comments have definitely picked up in the past few weeks and I’ve been trying to squash them as quickly as I can, but if you feel like helping by bringing these things to my attention, hitting the flag icon would be the way to do it.
Thanks!
Target Redcard gives free shipping without any annual fee.
But how are you supposed to watch all the weird people if you buy online? Oh yeah, the internet!
JK, I don’t go to Walmart anyway. There are two within driving distance for me and both are different kinds of terrible.
If they partnered with Netflix or offered a large selection of free Vudu videos they’d have my money in a second
You can already get free shipping at Walmart. Just get it shipped to the store and pick it up next time you’re there.
But then you have to walk into walmart 🙁
And drive, using gas, gas uses money. Money has to be earned. Yeah. Rather pay the $50 for a year. Good idea if there’s someone out there who uses WalMart online a lot.
I like what Walmart is doing lately, they’re improving a lot on their tablet lineup this year, you can find decent Chromebooks too.
Chromebooks are crippled Google spy machines by default, not decent by any measure. Walmart is anti-union and has policies and tactics that bust unions so they are also terrible by default, just like the other retailers.