Walmart pulled the ultimate membership move last week, bundling Walmart+ and Sam’s Club Plus into one $120 annual membership that gives customers free delivery from both chains, member prices at Sam’s Club, a choice of Peacock or Paramount+ (the Walmarts of streaming services), gas discounts, and 2% cashback in Sam’s Cash.
Anyone who already has Sam’s Club Plus gets Walmart+ at no extra cost, while annual Walmart+ members can switch to the bundle for $22 more a year, and people already paying for both can get a prorated refund.
Walmart CEO John Furner said:
“We’re giving people a reason to expect more from their memberships. For $120 a year, we’re raising expectations for what a membership can deliver: more money in their pockets and more time to call their own.”
He went on to pitch the bundle against paying $139 a year for delivery from a retailer and $130 for a warehouse club, which are the exact prices of Amazon Prime and Costco’s Executive membership. Burn!
Uh oh, are Costco and Amazon about to team up to compete against this new Walmart Membership Goliath?!
Not likely, LOL. The two companies have very different philosophies when it comes to corporate culture, employee compensation, and how they treat suppliers. Amazon would have to go after BJ’s or some other smaller warehouse chain, same as it went after Whole Foods a decade ago instead of attempting to acquire Kroger.
It’s a brilliant move by Walmart and Sam’s Club to combine the two memberships. The company recognizes that the memberships themselves aren’t about revenue, but about creating sticky shopping habits and offering a value that’s hard to rival anywhere else.
I’ve criticized Amazon heavily for gutting the value of their Prime membership over the past few years. It’s been death by a thousand cuts to the point that I called Amazon Prime “an ad-supported trial of the company’s premium services.” All the while, Amazon Prime has gotten 40% more expensive during the past decade, and technically 100% more expensive if you include paying for the ad-free add-on to Prime Video.
Such a shameful downfall for a retailer that effectively built the modern shopper membership.
