From price-matching local and online competitor prices to its own “Savings Catcher” program, Walmart offers customers a variety of ways to save a few buck on their bill. But shoppers at some stores will soon have one fewer option for saving money, as the big box retailer is ditching in-store price matching at 500 locations, though the company currently refuses to say which stores are on that list. [More]
walmart
Walmart Ending Price Matching Of Local Competitors’ Ads At 500 Stores; Won’t Say Which 500
By 5.25.16
Users Of Walmart’s Prepaid MoneyCard Say They Can’t Access Funds
By 5.19.16
Prepaid credit cards can serve as a lifeline for millions of unbanked Americans in need of an alternative to traditional banking, but they’re only helpful when users can actually get access to their funds. To that end, thousands of consumers who use Walmart-branded prepaid debit cards say they’ve been stranded without their funds for three days. [More]
Walmart Launches Mobile Payment App In Arkansas And Texas
By 5.16.16
Walmart resisted accepting any of the big mobile payment systems from companies like Apple, Google, and Samsung, instead becoming part of the CurrentC consortium, then developing its own proprietary payment app. As of today, customers can use Walmart Pay at 590 stores in Texas and Arkansas. [More]
Walmart Testing Two-Day Delivery Subscription Service
By 5.12.16
It’s finally time: Walmart is officially ready to take on Amazon’s $99/year two-day shipping service, Prime, by knocking off a delivery day and a dollar from its own ShippingPass subscription service. [More]
Analysis: Police Visit Walmart Stores Four Times More Often Than Target
By 5.11.16
If you’re an avid consumer of national news, there’s a specific picture that comes to mind when you see the words “Walmart in Florida.” It probably involves people racing store-owned mobility scooters down the aisles while shoplifting iced teas. A recent Tampa Bay Times analysis of police visits to Walmart stores shows that this picture is a slight exaggeration, but not far off: in the four counties surrounding the bay, police head to a Walmart somewhere in the area an average of two times every hour. [More]
Walmart Sues Visa Over Security Of Debit Card Authorizations
By 5.10.16
While retailers across the country installing chip-and-PIN card readers to better protect consumers’ bank information during checkout, Walmart claims in a recently filed lawsuit that Visa is urging the retailer to use a less-secure method for verifying debit card payments. [More]
Walmart’s Experiment Is Over: Greeters Are Returning For Good
By 5.4.16
For a while, Walmart tried a bold staffing experiment: they reassigned employees serving as greeters, a position that serves as both a friendly face and a theft deterrent. Instead of standing at the door, former greeters were to help guide customers to the checkouts, or help them find items in the aisles. That experiment began four years ago, and Walmart brought some greeters back about a year ago. Today Walmart announced that greeters will return to their rightful place in all stores. [More]
Walmart Ditching Wild Oats Organic Brand After 2 Years
By 4.25.16
Two years ago, Walmart announced that it would sell inexpensive organic food to a mass market under the Wild Oats brand, at lower prices than national brands of certified organic products. After just about 2 years, Walmart is ending its Wild Oats experiment, deciding instead to begin selling organic items under its own house brand, Great Value, and also sell more fresh produce. [More]
You’re Not Supposed To Receive Amazon Orders In Walmart And Sam’s Club Boxes
By 4.20.16
Buying an item on Amazon’s site doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily buying that item from Amazon. This can lead to serious confusion when you try to make a warranty claim, and seriously confuses some customers when a box from Walmart shows up on their doorstep with their Amazon order. Why would that happen? If a box from a different retailer shows up on your doorstep, it means that your seller is playing the retail arbitrage game and breaking Amazon’s rules. [More]
Raiders Of The Lost Walmart Find Ancient iPod Case, Rare Full-Price MobiBLU
By 4.18.16
It was almost three years ago that one of the Raiders of the Lost Walmart excavated their first MobiBLU, a mini MP3 player that was the hottest entertainment technology available from Walmart in 2005. Somehow, the devices are still on the shelves at Walmart, sometimes at the original full price, never drawing any interest from paying customers: only from the camera lenses of our brave retail archaeologists. [More]
Walmart Expands Grocery Pickup Option To Eight Additional Cities, Doubles Effort In Others
By 4.13.16
Consumers in eight additional cities will soon be able to order their groceries online and head to their local Walmart to pick them up later. Walmart announced Wednesday that it would expand its free online grocery pickup option — which officially launched in October — to Kansas City; Boise, ID; Richmond and Virginia Beach, VA; Austin; Provo, UT; Daphne, AL; and Charleston, SC, as well as double the number of stores that take part in the service in Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta. To use the service, customers simply place their orders online, pick a time to pick up their items, drive to the store, park in a designated spot, and call a special phone number. An associate then brings the goods straight to their trunk. [Walmart] [More]
Reser’s Recalls Salads For Possible Listeria, Also Sold Under Walmart And Safeway Brands
By 4.11.16
Reser’s Fine Foods may not be a food brand name that you immediately recognize, but their products are popular across the country, and are also sold under store brand names. From a 3-ounce container of Reser’s brand potato salad to an 8-pound tub of Sysco-brand macaroni salad meant for restaurants and cafeterias, cold salads containing onions from Reser’s have been recalled. [More]
Walmart Denies That Cashier Was Fired For Hugging Customers, Matching Prices
By 4.6.16
Last year, people around the country rallied behind two Walmart employees who they believed were unfairly fired for redeeming $5.10 in discarded soda cans and for waiting half-an-hour to turn in $350 dollars he found in the parking lot. Now, consumers are once again showing support for another cashier of the big box retailer who says he was fired for hugging customers and discounting a jug of tea. [More]
Walmart Will Switch To All Cage-Free Eggs By 2025
By 4.5.16
With competitors like Target and the Kroger and Albertsons families of supermarkets pledging to sell only cage-free eggs, Walmart apparently didn’t want to be left behind. The mega-retailer announced today that by 2025, all of the eggs it sells in Walmart and Sam’s Club stores will come from hens that were not raised in individual cages. [More]
Fuzzy Math At Walmart Means Bigger Chicken Broth Carton Costs You More
By 4.5.16
On the shelf, the 48-ounce carton of Swanson’s chicken broth brags that it’s 50% bigger. “50% bigger than what?” the cynical consumer might ask. The fine print tells us that it’s in comparison to the company’s 32-ounce container. This is all factually true, but the problem is that while the package makes shoppers think that they’ll get more, they’re actually paying more per ounce to buy the bigger package. [More]
Walmart Doesn’t Know The Difference Between Maryland And Massachusetts
By 4.4.16
It looks like someone at Walmart is due for a geography lesson, or could at least use a refresher on how to pull up a map of the United States on the internet, after a sharp-eyed Twitter denizen pointed out that the chain is selling University of Maryland T-shirts bearing an image of the state of Massachusetts. [More]
10 Years After Verdict, Walmart Must Pay $151 Million To Employees Who Worked Off The Clock
By 4.4.16
A case that has been trickling through the state and federal court system for nearly 15 years came to an abrupt ending this morning, with the U.S. Supreme Court refusing to hear Walmart’s appeal of a 2006 verdict ordering the company to pay $151 million to Pennsylvania employees who worked off the clock. [More]
Walmart Launches Revamped Credit Card Rewards Program
By 3.31.16
Saving money at Walmart is as easy as 1-2-3 — or 3-2-1? Either way, that’s the point the mega-retailer appears to be trying to get across with its newly launched Walmart Credit Card and Walmart MoneyCard cash-back rewards program. [More]
