Walmart cuts Walmart Plus price in half for the holidays

Walmart announced on Monday that it will offer its membership service Walmart Plus at a discount of 50% ahead of the holidays, in an effort to compete with Amazon.com Prime subscription services.

In order to help shoppers cope with the high inflation, retailers in the United States like Walmart launched their sales earlier this year and offered more discounts and incentives. National Retail Federation predicts that holiday retail sales in the United States will increase by up to 3.5%. This is the slowest growth rate in six years.

Walmart offers a Walmart Plus membership of one year for just $49 (regularly $98), from Monday to December 2.

Walmart is attempting to compete with Amazon Prime which costs $139 a year and has six times as many subscribers. Consumer Intelligence Research Partners estimates that Amazon Prime has 180,000,000 U.S. customers, while eMarketer predicts Walmart Plus to reach 32,000,000 subscribers by this year.

Walmart Plus includes benefits such as express, same-day and next-day delivery, a Paramount+ subscription for free, and 10 cents per gallon off. Amazon Prime members receive perks like an annual Grubhub+ subscription, exclusive early deals on Prime Day and free access Amazon Music and Amazon Prime Video. (Reporting and editing by Maju Samuel in Bengaluru, Anuja Mistry from Bengaluru)

(source: Reuters)