On the day of the company’s highly anticipated membership launch, Walmart says it is already factoring pandemic needs into Walmart Plus’s perks. Janey Whiteside, Walmart's executive vice president and chief customer officer, told Cheddar the biggest pandemic-related features of the membership are centered around the Unlimited Free Delivery and Scan & Go options.
“We designed this by looking at what we knew that our customers wanted and needed,” she said, explaining that the core of the program also came from Walmart’s existing customer base.
The Scan & Go feature is one example of that. “The number one thing we heard from customers, pre- but also during the pandemic, is, ‘I want to get in and out of that store when I choose to go, as quickly as I possibly can.’”
However, Whiteside noted that while the company is working to offer unlimited free delivery across the U.S., it isn’t available everywhere yet. Users can go to the Walmart+ website to find out if their address is covered.
She also announced that customers enrolled in the Unlimited Delivery pilot, which rolled out in June, were automatically upgraded into Walmart+ today.
With Walmart+, customers can shop from more than 160,000 items which will come from the store to their door through the program. “We like to think about that as the most highly-curated items on the planet which exist in our supercenters today,” said Whiteside.
Heading into the busy holiday season "like no other," with looming concerns about another round of lockdowns, Whiteside told Cheddar her team is confident in Walmart’s supply chain.
“We obviously have anticipated a number of new members coming on,” Whiteside told Cheddar. “So we are confident around our ability to get the goods to people.”
Walmart also recently announced a drone delivery pilot, but Whiteside said it won’t be dropping off Walmart+ packages anytime soon. “As we work our way through [drone testing] and understand how it works and how we tie it to customer needs, I'm excited about how we roll that in over the coming weeks, months, years.”
Walmart+ comes at a lower price than its main competitor, Amazon Prime, which charges $119 a year. Walmart’s membership will cost $98 annually or just over $12 monthly including a 15-day free trial.
Nvidia on Wednesday became the first public company to reach a market capitalization of $5 trillion. The ravenous appetite for the Silicon Valley company’s chips is the main reason that the company’s stock price has increased so rapidly since early 2023.
Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global, breaks down September’s CPI print and inflation trends, explaining what it means for markets.
A big-screen adaptation of the anime “Chainsaw Man” has topped the North American box office, beating a Springsteen biopic and “Black Phone 2.” The movie earned $17.25 million in the U.S. and Canada this weekend. “Black Phone 2” fell to second place with $13 million. Two new releases, the rom-com “Regretting You” and “Springsteen — Deliver Me From Nowhere,” earned $12.85 million and $9.1 million, respectively. “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” is based on the manga series about a demon hunter. It's another win for Sony-owned Crunchyroll, which also released a “Demon Slayer” film last month that debuted to a record $70 million.
The Federal Aviation Administration says flights departing for Los Angeles International Airport were halted briefly due to a staffing shortage at a Southern California air traffic facility. The FAA issued a temporary ground stop at one of the world’s busiest airports on Sunday morning soon after U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted that travelers would see more flights delayed as the nation’s air traffic controllers work without pay during the federal government shutdown. The hold on planes taking off for LAX lasted an hour and 45 minutes and didn't appear to cause continued problems. The FAA said staffing shortages also delayed planes headed to Washington, Chicago and Newark, New Jersey on Sunday.
