Walmart’s upcoming membership offering will provide inexpensive prices and quick deliveries to shoppers. The rollout of Walmart+, which is forecasted to compete with Amazon Prime, has been highly anticipated, CNBC reported.
“There has been a lot of buzz recently about membership at Walmart,” CEO Doug McMillon said on the company’s second quarter earnings call with analysts on Tuesday (Aug. 18). “We’ve been testing membership with Delivery Unlimited subscriptions since late last year. That customer offer was limited to a grocery and consumables delivery service as the reason to sign up.”
“Since that launch, we’ve proven to ourselves that we can pick and deliver a broad set of categories across the supercenter, not just food and consumables, but a wide assortment of general merchandise,” McMillion continued.
McMillion said the company has been progressing in the direction of a new membership rollout. He noted that the company will provide additional details about the membership and the timing in the future.
The news comes as Walmart experienced another online shopping blowout and formidable performance in its grocery segment for a Q2 that came out ahead of expectations and displayed its ongoing growth amid the pandemic.
The retailer’s Q2 results displayed a U.S. comparative store sales rise of 9.3 percent over Q2 of last year and a 97 percent surge in online shopping, as announced Tuesday.
The online shopping performance comes after a 74 percent increase in Q1. Digital sales increased to 600 basis points in Q2 from 180 basis points in Q1.
Walmart had intended to roll out Walmart+ in July. However, the month came and went, and there wasn’t an indication of the retailer’s next move.
The Walmart service will reportedly come at an annual cost of $98 and cover everything from same-day delivery for supermarket items and general products to promotions and early access to discounts.
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