Earlier today, Walmart announced that they now offer free 2-day shipping on over 2 million items. But before you cancel your Amazon Prime membership and become a “Walmart-aholic”, you need to fully understand this new shipping policy and how it works. Here are the nuts and bolts that you need to know to get free 2-day shipping at Walmart.

Walmart Launches Free 2-Day Shipping

As of 1/31/17, these are the details you need to know to make it work for you.

• No Membership Fee – Unlike Amazon, which charges $119 for Prime, Walmart’s new 2-day free shipping is open to everyone with no fee whatsoever. Walmart’s Shipping Pass program, which charged a membership fee, is officially kicked to the curb for good.
• Walmart Lowers Free Shipping Threshold to $35 – To qualify for free 2-day shipping, you no longer have to spend $50. $35 is the new magic number.
• Still Have Free Ship-To-Store with No Threshold – Aren’t planning on spending $35 or more? Then just choose the “ship-to-store” option during checkout and pick up the item at your local Walmart for no cost.
• So What’s the Catch? – Apparently not every single item Walmart sells qualifies for free 2-day shipping. They’re limiting it to “the items customers shop the most”. This comes out to over 2 million items in total.
• So Which Items Qualify? – According to Walmart’s press release, these items include “household essentials such as baby necessities, pet products, food, like cereal and peanut butter, cleaning supplies and beauty favorites, as well as top electronics and toys.”

Does This Have Amazon Worried?

While I really like how Walmart lowered their free shipping threshold from $50 to $35, and they promise to get items delivered to you within 2 business days, they still have quite a way to go to be considered an Amazon Prime “killer”.

The fact that Prime members can order anything (except add-on items), at any time, and get it delivered for free in 2-days is hard to beat.

Throw in the fact that Amazon will extend your Prime membership by a month if UPS can’t get your stuff to you in time, and their customer service team still wins the day.

Even if they stopped their price match policy for the time being, which totally sucks.

Also, the many perks that come with an Amazon Prime membership still make Prime the clear winner for many online shoppers.

But with that said, the Walmart e-commerce team is doing the right things and really trying to compete with Amazon. In the end, that’s a major win for us consumers as competition always leads to lower prices and better customer service.

Ask the Reader: Are you going to start using Walmart’s new 2-day shipping policy? Will you start checking the price at Walmart instead of blindly buying from Amazon?

By Kyle James

Image courtesy of Walmart.