Amazon has always been coy on how many people are subscribed to Amazon Prime, Amazon’s subscription membership that offers free shipping on most orders (and one-to-two day on many items), free online streaming, and other benefits. In 2018, Amazon’s founder and CEO revealed that the company had surpassed 100 million around the world.
That number, however, includes people in the same household. Various analyses suggest that over half — perhaps closer to 60% — of households in the US are a part of Amazon Prime.
Amazon Prime costs $12.99 a month or $119 a year. Students and EBT/Medicaid recipients can get a reduced rate of about $6-7 a month, but there are limits to the number of years subscribers can get these prices. There’s also a $8.99 a month plan for just Prime Video.
With such a large amount of members, of course competitors have tried to emulate Prime’s success over the years. Sears/Kmart and Newegg launched their own free shipping subscription plans. Google Express and ShopRunner have attempted to bundle several stores together to boost its membership value. Best Buy and Target decided to offer one-to-two-day shipping at $35 and ways to get free shipping on almost everything (by spending $1,500 or more in a year or with their credit/debit card respectively).
In another example, Walmart, one of Amazon’s top competitors in the US, tested a $50 a year free shipping program called Shipping Pass, and it officially launched in June 2016. However, after about half a year, Walmart ended the program and switched to two-day shipping (and later as soon as the next day) at $35.
In early 2020, rumors began swirling about Walmart’s next attempt to create a membership program. It was widely expected to be a relaunch of their grocery delivery service called Delivery Unlimited.
This was confirmed in September, when Walmart revealed Walmart+.
Costing $99 a year or $12.95 a month, it includes benefits like free grocery delivery on $35+ orders, the ability to use Scan & Go at stores, and 5c off gas. Amazon also has free grocery delivery in select areas thanks to Whole Foods, but Walmart’s 1,400+ participating stores is almost triple the number of Whole Foods stores.
A survey conducted shortly after its debut showed that 11% of Americans had signed up for Walmart+.
I was not one of them. I had been looking forward to Walmart+ since it’s my main grocery store, but I didn’t sign up. Mainly because my nearest store does not do grocery delivery — and if it does become available, there’s a good chance I’d be out of their range. And while Scan & Go would be useful sometimes, scanning things into my cart vs unloading at self-scan (which I have been using since the lines are usually shorter) is worth $8 a month, and there’s no way that the 5c off each gallon of gas would reduce the value of this much.
But as of December 4th, Walmart has added a new benefit to Walmart+: free shipping no minimum at Walmart.com. According to the FAQ, “Oversized and freight items are not included, as well as third-party sellers not shipped by Walmart.”
While Walmart+ launched as more of a Prime-adjacent or Prime-supplement program thanks to the number of Walmart stores (especially as more of its 4,700 stores implements grocery delivery), this change means that Walmart+ is now a direct competitor to Amazon Prime.
Of course, even with its lower annual price tag, Walmart+ includes less benefits than Prime. There’s no free reading, streaming, or members-only pricing. And anime and manga fans have likely taken advantage of all of these: there’s manga to read to free courtesy of Prime like Beck, MARS, and Shaman King; anime to watch including Fushigi Yugi, GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka, and Vinland Saga; and Amazon has offered low prices on anime releases to Prime members or discounts like $5 back on $20 in Kindle eBooks. And, quite frankly, a lot of people are just plain comfortable with Amazon’s ecosystem — after all, about 40% of online sales are through Amazon. But I decided to sign up for Walmart+ to see how I like it now that it’s actually useful to me.
But will Walmart+ do better than ShippingPass, which only lasted six months as a nationwide program? Well, almost certainly just because of the time we’re living in. Online sales have skyrocketed during the pandemic, and it’s caused even Amazon’s sophisticated shipping system to be backed up at times. This gives people another option.
Another positive is that with Amazon being the #1 source for a lot of online shoppers, especially in this pandemic, things may arrive faster at Walmart than at Amazon. Take this Pac-man spin on the classic Monopoly game.
On December 4th at night, Amazon via Prime gave me a delivery date of December 10th. Walmart via Walmart+ gave me a delivery date of December 7th, three days earlier.
If that was for a Christmas present, of course that few extra days wouldn’t make a difference. But if it was for a birthday? Or something needed for a trip? Getting it three days faster could make a big difference in getting value out of the $8-13 monthly fee for Walmart+.
In addition, Walmart and Amazon tend to price match each other, and I’ve noticed Amazon almost always sells out of the best deals faster than Walmart. Not surprising since Walmart only makes up about 5% of online sales, and they’re still #2 after Amazon.
Also, in the cases where Walmart.com does not automatically change the price to whatever Amazon’s is, you can request them to match it. This also applies to other retailers like Target.com and Bestbuy.com, which both require $35 for free shipping. So not having to throw in something else to reach $35 at those stores is nice, assuming you don’t have My Best Buy Elite or a RedCard, and both places tend to have regular sales on video games. Unfortunately, GameStop is not on the approved list, which is a disappointment.
For anime/manga, though, while their selection is better than Target’s, Walmart has nowhere near the selection as Amazon. Take the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba manga for instance. While Walmart has up to volume 22 available to preorder, only 17 volumes of the series is available to order from them — that’s about one-fourth of the one of the biggest manga series missing!
The same situation happens with a lot of other titles. So Walmart is hardly a reliable outlet for anime.
However, at least Walmart+ is now a real option for customers, especially for those who rely heavily on Walmart for a lot of their grocery and/or immediate shopping needs. That’s the target audience, and while Walmart+ may not be for everyone, it’s so much better than it was just a week ago.