Wal Mart all set to challenge Amazon Prime by its shipping service

The retailer giant is ready to test a free, three day shipping service that's half the price of Amazon Prime, in a move to take on its arch rival's shipping service.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is looking to test latest unlimited shipping services for its online customers this summer. This is the recent move by the company to take on its biggest competitor Amazon.com free 2 day shipping service. While the service of Amazon is priced at $99 annually, Wal-Mart is challenging the service with almost half price point of $50 a year.
The shipping subscription is most likely to be offered to choose users on a basis on invite only, starting this summer. Offered more than million products, shoppers will avail free delivery in 3 days of lesser.
The online retailer has not yet decided what the service will be called, when it reveals it's beta testing in the coming week. It will be similar to the way Amazon Prime works; the e-commerce company will provide only a subsection of product for shipping than what its online platform offers. The products will be flagged or labeled specially in order to inform users that the product is eligible for free delivery. Normally, Wal-Mart has on offer more than 7 million products, but on these testing; only 1 million plus items under this service will be available.
Although, the unlimited free shipping offer marks a substantial commitment on part of Wal-Mart, and strengthens how ambitious the company is about increasing its growth of its e-commerce online platform, which has slowed down in the recent times.
Throughout the years, it has tried several online initiatives from local delivery of grocery to subscription sample box services. While, some of these initiatives did now work out, the company is still looking to test them in five of its different markets.
Ravi Jariwala, a spokesperson of the company said the service comes when the demand from customer increases regarding convenient, reliable and affordable shipping services. Its company's strategy to lead top line numbers by goes on board on latest path of growth. It is also looking to serve customers who are progressively flocking to PCs and smartphones to buy the product with ease.
Mr. Jariwala said, "One of things that we've heard from customers is that they want shopping that's predicable and they want it to be affordable. This test is really to understand is this yet another new way that we can serve customers?"
Wal-Mart service will not be in direct competition with the Amazon Prime as it is not convoyed by features like free video and music streaming that is offered by Amazon. Consumer feedbacks on the free shipping service will decide how the things will move on and whether the company should continue the service or not. The main idea behind the strategy is not to find out whether customer wants free and fast delivery, since Amazon already provides that, but to find out whether the company can capture their interest with the lower price and reliability of offer.