Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) announced earlier today the company was going to put a damper on Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) Prime Day by launching a rival sales campaign on this coming Wednesday, July 15th. President and CEO of Walmart.com Fernando Madeira fired shots at the internet retail giant, not by name however, on the company’s blog with this declaration:
“Walmart.com, you’ll know that every day is a special day where everyone has access to the same low prices we offer. We mean everyone: you, your neighbor, your boss, your best friend … all of whom are looking for the best price on the things they want and need. We’ve heard some retailers are charging $100 to get access to a sale. But the idea of asking customers to pay extra in order to save money just doesn’t add up for us.”
Mr. Madeira’s statement about “retailers,” i.e. Amazon, charging $100 to participate in the Prime Day event is slightly exaggerated since customers with an Amazon Prime Free Trial can participate in Prime Day. To add further drama, Vice President of Amazon Prime Greg Greeley responded to the quote above by stating:
“We’ve heard some retailers are charging higher prices for items in their physical stores than they do for the same items online. The idea of charging your in-store customers more than your online customers doesn’t add up for us, but it’s a good reminder that you’re usually better off shopping online.”
With that being noted, there are key differences between the Wal-Mart and Amazon sales events. Everything you need to know about Prime Day has been covered by us here. The Wal-Mart sales event will last longer than one day where customers will see “thousands of great deals on Rollback” items as well as lower free shipping minimums, $35 from $50, for 30 days.
In addition to the rollback prices and lower free shipping minimum, Mr. Madeira also promised “some special atomic deals” with “more details to come later.”
Final Thoughts
Now with Wal-Mart joining Amazon, there may be more large retailers joining in on this newly budding summer sales season. We are just going to have to wait to see who wins the Sales Wars: Battle of July 15th. Stay in tune for more coverage.
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