Walmart to offer online discounts
The retailer is working to improve its web presence amid pricing war with Amazon
SUNNYVALE — Walmart, which is hiring hundreds of workers in the Bay Area to bolster its e-commerce efforts, will soon offer customers new ways to get discounts if they buy products online and then pick up the items in one of the retailer’s stores, the company said Wednesday.
The move by Walmart — whose e-commerce operations are largely designed at company offices in San Bruno and Sunnyvale — comes as it wages an increasingly fierce battle to capture shoppers’ dollars through the internet.
“Starting on April 19, we are
going to begin offering a discount on eligible, onlineonly (non-store) items that customers buy online and ship to any Walmart store for pickup,” said Marc Lore, chief executive officer of Walmart U.S. eCommerce, in a blog post.
Brick-and-mortar retailers are wrestling with ways to successfully meld their physical stores with their digital commerce sites. To combat Amazon with such initiatives, Walmart.com is busy hiring technology workers in Sunnyvale and San Bruno.
The new online discounts indicate how Walmart is working to parlay its purchase of online retailer Jet. com into increased online sales and new ways to entice customers to its digital site. It completed the acquisition of Jet in September 2016 for $3 billion.
Jet’s software enables it to lower prices when customers add more items to their shopping carts. The deal also is expected to help Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, to reach more customers such as millennial shoppers.
For a $148 infant car seat, the discount was $7.40 if customers picked up the item in the store, according to an example of a potential purchase suggested by the retailer. The hypothetical transaction also included free, two-day shipping.
Of course, the real question is whether $7 in savings would be enough to entice people to hop in a car to pick up the item — unless that trip was combined with other errands, including shopping at the store.
“Jet.com created a unique, transparent way for customers to shop, helping them make choices that lower their prices as they shop — from building smarter baskets to opting out of free returns and using debit cards,” Doug McMillon, Walmart’s president and CEO, wrote in a blog post. “This has helped Jet.com win fans among savvy shoppers and will help us put the power to save in more shoppers’ hands.”