(Bloomberg) — Walmart Inc. is turning to furry friends to expand its membership program.
The company announced it will add telemedicine services for pets as a new benefit for Walmart+ users this year. The offer, the program's first health care benefit, is part of Walmart's effort to retain and add users who pay $98 a year to receive free online shipping to compete with rival Amazon.com.
Venessa Yates, senior vice president and general manager of Walmart+, said Walmart tested a pet telemedicine service through a partnership with online veterinary service Pope and found it to be the best member redemption benefit in 2023. It is said that it became.
Yates and her team are looking at Walmart+'s wide range of benefits, including travel cashback and streaming, and looking at insights to determine which benefits are important to users. About 75% of Walmart+ members own pets, making it a good fit for the retailer, Yates said.
For Walmart, the Walmart+ membership program is a new business aimed at increasing profits and loyalty. The company did not disclose membership numbers since launching the program in 2020, but said user numbers have continued to grow at double-digit rates. The number of users of his Walmart+ in the industry is estimated to be around 10 million to 60 million. The company also recently rolled out a discounted version for people on the nutritional supplement known as SNAP.
Walmart+ is still much smaller than Amazon's Prime, which has about 180 million users in the United States. The company also competes with other retailers that are adding gas savings and streaming perks to attract more users, betting that those consumers will become more loyal. Bloomberg News previously reported that Kroger Co. and Walt Disney Co. are in talks to add Disney+ to Kroger's membership program. Target Corp. he launched a new paid membership program in April.
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