Walmart strengthens its omnichannel strategy. The supermarket chain introduced its subscription program for unlimited deliveries, a strategy similar to the one used in the United States to deal with Amazon.
The program, which bears the name of Walmart Pass, has two modalities: an annual payment of 499 pesos or another of 49 pesos if the subscription is monthly, applicable for minimum purchases of 499 pesos. Without the subscription, Walmart Supercenter has a home delivery cost of 39 pesos per shipment.
This subscription, which the company presented in the United States since the beginning of the year, is part of Walmart’s strategy to strengthen its omnichannel approach, with a boost to on-demand services, that is, purchases made from its online store or your mobile app.
Memberships for home deliveries are already a product that digital companies such as Jüsto or CornerShop already offer in the market. But beyond the competition with these platforms, Marisol Huerta, stock market analyst at Grupo Financiero Ve por Más, believes that with these programs the company seeks to face the company of Jeff Bezos.
“Walmart’s objective is not in online channels, its main competition has always been Amazon. What they are trying to do is achieve greater consumer loyalty ”, says the expert.
Cuy Arroyo, vice president of e-commerce operations at Walmart, considers that each of the players have their strengths and weaknesses, such as Walmart, which for now has the objective of becoming the preferred company for Mexicans to make their purchases, with the options to serve customers from the sales channel that is most comfortable for them.
“No one can deliver the variety of a Walmart Supercenter to you in three hours, none of my competitors can. That is the great offer that we are launching, ”says Arroyo.
Omnichannel results are advancing. During the first three months of the year, the contribution of e-commerce to total sales growth increased 190 basis points to 2.6%, compared to the first quarter of 2020.
Mexico has room to grow the retail electronic commerce market, which in 2020 had a value of 316,000 million pesos, with a growth of 81%, compared to the previous year. This represents 9% of the sales of the retail channels, according to data from the Mexican Association of Online Sales.
For this year, Walmart estimates investments of 22,200 million pesos between new stores, remodeling, electronic commerce, technology and logistics. The company’s intention is for omnichannel to have a double-digit stake within the company.
Build customer loyalty
Walmart Pass is also a channel to strengthen Walmart’s relationship with its customers. Arroyo explains that they seek to keep buyers who already use the platforms. However, it will also allow them to keep them pending of the offers that will be launched through this channel.
“Walmart is going to capture the consumers who are going to stay in this basket and it also seeks to attract more. This type of strategy is very good because it allows you to have a list of clients, to whom they can send specific offers ”, declares Marisol Huerta.
Arroyo did not share the number of subscribers who already have Walmart Pass, nor how many they hope to capture, however, he states that there is already a “fabulous” acquisition of customers who have arrived organically, since the company has not yet started with the campaign of marketing and advertising for the service.
Meanwhile, the manager points out that they will maintain this customer center strategy. “We are going to have other changes in the rest of the year that are the consequence of these surveys and what we ask our customers. Some we only do them faster, others take us longer depending on the technological or infrastructure requirement they require ”.
