| Hey y'all, it's Austin. On Tuesday, Walmart Inc. will finally launch its long-awaited challenger to Amazon Prime. The e-commerce program, called Walmart+, is a $98-per-year subscription service that offers unlimited free delivery from stores for orders over $35, groceries included. The offering comes during a perilous time for American retail, as online orders and deliveries become an increasingly existential threat to traditional stores. Walmart in particular has made a push to rethink its digital strategy. On Monday, it announced a new drone delivery partnership for wellness products. It's also in the running for some kind of deal with social media phenom TikTok. Compared with Amazon, though, the Arkansas-based giant is still very much the underdog in e-commerce. The annual fee for Walmart+ is $21 lower than for Amazon Prime, which may appeal to the most price-conscious consumers. But Prime already boasts more than 150 million subscribers, a tally Jeff Bezos and team have been building on for 15 years. With such high prices for both Prime and Walmart+, it seems unlikely that customers will sign up for both. The question now is whether Walmart's better-late-than-never delivery rival can win over Amazon stalwarts. Walmart's online sales have been soaring in recent years, but the process has been messy. The company faced challenges merging its digital and physical storefronts, and it bet billions on Jet.com, only to integrate the service into its central brand. After buying up a string of e-commerce upstarts, Walmart sold or divested from many of them. The company has also shuttered a slew of retail experiments, including a two-day shipping program and personal shopping service. And years of experiments in creating a Prime competitor haven't amounted to much before now. The new Walmart+ subscription doesn't offer many bells and whistles. In an interview earlier this month, Janey Whiteside, Walmart's chief customer officer, said Walmart+ would help streamline their e-commerce experience and help members "manage their pocket books." Toward that end, Walmart+ also includes same-day delivery on some of its inventory, as well as fuel savings at affiliated gas stations. One retail analyst called the collective offering "thin gruel." As a Prime member, I've eagerly awaited Walmart's new subscription service, particularly as I've found myself turning to Walmart for deliveries during the pandemic as Amazon's fulfillment faced unusual hiccups. Yet what's likely to keep me glued to Prime isn't their retail service any longer, but the eclectic portfolio of ancillary products I gain as a member, features lacking from Walmart+. Prime members gain access to a trove of music, streaming TV shows and movies, Twitch, cloud storage and delivery from Whole Foods. After a decade of integrating my life with Amazon's hardware, including Fire TV, Kindle and Echo, leaving Prime is a hard sell. Years ago, many of these offshoots seemed strange and disconnected from Amazon's mission to become "The Everything Store." They left analysts and shareholders scratching their heads at the company's seemingly endless appetite for losses. But Amazon's side bets have since become crucial to building a competitive moat, and keeping shoppers locked into the Amazon ecosystem. If Prime members consider switching to Walmart+, they probably won't be thinking about the cheaper subscription cost of jumping to a different retailer. More likely, they'll think about losing access to popular shows like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel or The Boys. Is that really worth saving $21 a year? —Austin Carr | 
Post a Comment