In a bid to steal the thunder of Amazon's Prime Day, Walmart revealed that it will be offering free shipping with no minimum purchase required for five days beginning on July 11.
Amazon's Prime Day is an online sales event for subscribers to Amazon's Prime membership, which is a digital content and free shipping service that costs customers $99 per year or $10.99 per month.
Walmart's free shipping offer will begin a day before this year's Prime Day, which is slated to be on July 12 and is expected to be even bigger than last year's event.
"We believe saving money every day is better than just one, and that all customers should save, not only some," said Walmart in a statement, directly challenging Amazon's Prime Day.
Rival companies of Amazon are understandably wary of the annual event, as last year, Amazon was able to generate more sales on Prime Day than it recorded on Black Friday, which is the country-wide shopping event that kicks off the year-end shopping season in the United States.
Walmart will be looking to steal some customers away from Amazon, either by keeping its own customers on its online platform or by attracting new shoppers.
The free shipping offer with no required minimum purchase is a part of the retail giant's wider strategy of fueling growth for its online commerce division, as online sales growth is slowing down. The online sales of Walmart through its website and mobile app only increased 7 percent in the last quarter, compared to 17 percent in the corresponding quarter last year.
The offer will be in addition to the previously reported free 30-day trial of Walmart's ShippingPass, which is a nationwide membership program that will provide customers with free shipping. The program will only cost customers $49 per year, which is half of Amazon's Prime membership, and could be a better deal for consumers who primarily use their subscriptions for the free shipping.
ShippingPass initially offered free three-day shipping, but in an effort to make the service more competitive, Walmart has reduced the free shipping to only two days. The free 30-day trial also mirrors the similar number of free trial days for Amazon Prime.
While ShippingPass does not offer certain Prime perks such as unlimited content streaming services and cloud picture storage, one advantage over Amazon's offering is that Walmart will allow customers to return online purchases through any of the company's retail stores, while Amazon required customers to ship back the products to request for a refund.
Walmart will also be offering discounts on a variety of product categories this week to combat Amazon's Prime Day deals.
