Cristine Li

Walmart currently introduced its new mail subscription service named “Goodie”, which is same idea as Birchbox’s model. Customers only need to pay $7 per month, and they will receive a box included selective samples of food products with value of $15 from Walmart monthly. Subscribers will earn membership points if they give review for these goods, which they can redeem the points to get free boxes or products in the future.

Walmart is smart for doing this because they save money by advertising for suppliers and itself. As the VP of Walmart, Ravi Raj, says in the article, Walmart can not only fighting for price war. Not just copying Birchbox’ model, Walmart ttys to differentiate itself by introducing “Goodies” with membership points system. Subscribers will pleasant to give feedback to Walmart and earn points for their future purchasing in Walmart. It is a win-win strategy. As Janice Chan says in her blog post, the feedback will help Walmart to identify its popular products, and thus Walmart can change its inventory and selling.

However, this kind of service is easy to copy, which means its competitors may do the same thing or find a better way to defeat Walmart. Therefore, Walmart need not only to keep improving its existing service, but also finding other ways to support the sales in long term.

Reply for Janice Chan’s blog post: Wal-mart “Goodies” Subscription Service.

Original Source: Article 1