Walmart plans to launch its subscription service this month as it throws down the gauntlet to Amazon Prime.

The US retail titan has been working on its own paid-for membership scheme, Walmart+, for around two years, as previously reported by Retail Week. 

According to Bloomberg, Walmart plans to launch the service in its home market before the end of July. 

Walmart+ will reportedly cost users $98 (£77) a year and include perks such as same-day delivery on grocery and general merchandise orders.

Amazon Prime, by comparison, costs shoppers in the US $119 (£94) a year and includes unlimited one-day delivery on more than 10 million products, as well as its video-streaming service.

Amazon Prime currently has more than 150 million members across the globe.

Walmart has won thousands of new online shoppers during the coronavirus pandemic – ecommerce sales surged 74% in the three months to March 31 – and wants to capitalise on the growing popularity of its digital offer. 

The Walmart+ service is being spearheaded by its chief customer officer Janey Whiteside, a Cardiff University economics graduate. 

Whiteside’s team has been looking at options and perks that are not yet offered by Amazon, including giving customers the ability to order goods via text message, that it could integrate into the Walmart+ proposition. 

That service was previously offered by Jet Black, the premium personal shopping business incubated through Walmart’s Store No.8 programme, before it was shut down earlier this year.

Walmart said at the time of the decision that it would take learnings from the Jet Black business and integrate them within Walmart’s existing ecommerce operations.

The world’s biggest bricks-and-mortar retailer is still in the red when it comes to ecommerce, despite generating $21.5bn (£17bn) of online sales last year.

Walmart dominates Amazon in online grocery, but margins are much thinner than on general merchandise products. 

The retailer hopes Walmart+ will better leverage its food offer and convince grocery shoppers to add more non-food items into their online baskets.

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