Walmart has reportedly planned to launch the Walmart+ service in late March or April, but it’s now been indefinitely delayed. With Walmart+, the company is trying to compete with services like Amazon Prime.
This is according to Recode, who has reported that Walmart made the decision to postpone the launch of its new subscription service.
Unfortunately, the company hasn’t announced a new date when the service is going to be available. Prior to this, Walmart+ was announced to launch in July. However, there is no announcement made last month, and it is now said to be delayed indefinitely.
Walmart once again delayed the launch of its Walmart+ subscription service
Also, there is no confirmation whether it will initially be limited to specific regions or a nation-wide launch. Walmart says it is a top priority for the company right now. The Walmart+ service is actually a rebranded Delivery Unlimited service, but with more perks.
It costs the same $98 and offers unlimited same-day deliveries of groceries and goods from Walmart Supercenters. Walmart has to offer at least a few unique perks to avoid comparisons with Amazon Prime. The other benefits might include early access to deals, fuel discounts at Walmart gas stations, and cashier-less checkout with the “Scan & Go” service.
Walmart+ could also include video streaming for free
However, Walmart has to offer a lot more to match up with Amazon’s Prime subscription service. Amazon Prime also offers a free subscription to Prime Video and Prime Music. Additionally, Amazon also offers unlimited cloud storage for its Prime members to store photos.
Walmart is reportedly planning to offer video streaming service with Walmart+. As of now, there isn’t much information available about this. While it’s tough for Walmart to build a Prime Video alternative from ground up, it could benefit from partnering with other streaming services.
During its earnings call in May, Walmart reported a 74 percent growth in e-commerce sales in the US. The panic-buying caused due to the coronavirus pandemic could also have resulted in this huge surge. Still, its e-commerce business is nowhere close to Amazon.
The current situation could have been a perfect opportunity for Walmart to launch its subscription service. However, the company is still holding on to the launch without revealing any details. At least, we are soon going to see an alternative to the Prime subscription service.
Amazon launched the Prime subscription service in 2005. In January 2020, CEO Jeff Bezos has announced that Amazon now has over 150 million Prime members globally.