Interesting

Wal-Mart Sharpens Amazon Attack With 2-Day Delivery Service

The Canadian Press, 12 May, 2016 11:14 AM

NEW YORK — Wal-Mart is sharpening its attack on Amazon.com.

The world's largest retailer is trimming its free-shipping pilot program to two days from a three, and it's cutting a dollar off the membership price. Membership is now be $49 per year.

The Bentonville, Arkansas, company began testing the new service last year in answer to Amazon Prime's two-day shipping, a big part of its domination of the retail sector.

Amazon membership costs $99 a year, which comes with a bewildering array of perks, including household product subscriptions, one and two hour Prime Now delivery, streaming music and video, photo storage and more.

"Prime has become an all-you-can-eat, physical-digital hybrid," Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos wrote in his annual shareholder letter in April. He wants the service to be such a good deal that you'd be "irresponsible" not to sign up, he wrote.

And Amazon has thrived because of it. Analysts say that Amazon Prime members buy more frequently and spend more money.

Wal-Mart's program, called ShippingPass, allows users to purchase more than one million items, including the most commonly purchased goods at Walmart.com.

"We can offer faster and more affordable shipping because we have a unique fulfilment network that includes new large fulfilmentcentres, stores, distribution centres and our transportation network," Wal-Mart said in a company release.

ShippingPass is only a pilot program and Wal-Mart will not say when it plans to extend the service to all customers.

Prev Next

MORE Interesting ARTICLES

Jon Snow? Or Cersei? List Of Canadian Oddball Job Interview Questions

Here are the Top 10 oddball job interview questions in Canada for the past year, according to a study by Glassdoor, a jobs and recruiting company, based on hundreds of thousands of interview questions shared by job candidate

Jon Snow? Or Cersei? List Of Canadian Oddball Job Interview Questions

Smoking Still Comes Cheaper Than Vaping E-Cigarettes

Regarded as a tax advantaged product and also having lower risks than the heavily taxed tobacco cigarettes, e-cigarettes actually cost higher than conventional cigarettes in most countries, new research has found.

Smoking Still Comes Cheaper Than Vaping E-Cigarettes

T-Rex Hands New Selfie Craze, Sees Celebrities Including The Kardashians In The Same Pose

Thighbrows and duckface poses are things of the past. The new Tyrannosaurus rex (T.rex) hands pose is the latest trend, the media reported on Thursday.

T-Rex Hands New Selfie Craze, Sees Celebrities Including The Kardashians In The Same Pose

Know Who Is Most Likely To Help You At Office

Shedding new light on how status affects workplace relationships, a new study has found that workers are most likely to help colleagues who are moderately distant from themselves in status -- both above and below them.

Know Who Is Most Likely To Help You At Office

Ohio Museum Apologizes After Woman Is Told Not To Breastfeed

An Ohio museum is encouraging breastfeeding after a Pennsylvania mother's Facebook post drew a flurry of responses.

Ohio Museum Apologizes After Woman Is Told Not To Breastfeed

Soon, Clothes That Clean Themselves With Light

The researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have developed a cheap and efficient new way to grow special nanostructures -- which can degrade organic matter when exposed to light -- directly onto textiles.