Wal-Mart Says ‘Try This On’: Free Shipping

For years, Wal-Mart has used its clout as the nation’s largest retailer to squeeze competitors with rock-bottom prices in its stores. Now it is trying to throw a holiday knockout punch online.

Starting Thursday, Wal-Mart Stores plans to offer free shipping on its Web site, with no minimum purchase, on almost 60,000 gift items, including many toys and electronics. The offer will run through Dec. 20, when Wal-Mart said it might consider other free-shipping deals.

But given Wal-Mart’s scale and influence in the marketplace, its free pass for shipping sets a new high — or low — in e-commerce. And it may create an expectation among consumers — free shipping, no minimum, always — that would make it harder for smaller e-commerce sites to survive.

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TV Bargains Come Early This Year

Retailers and manufacturers are slashing flat-screen television prices more aggressively than usual this holiday season in hopes of avoiding a pileup of inventory. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Best Buy Co. and Amazon.com Inc. are touting deals ahead of Black Friday to clear out older and cheaper sets before an anticipated flood of deeper price cuts in coming weeks.

The frenzy is being fueled by such top makers as Sony Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co., which are reducing suggested retail prices and sweetening their promotions with such extras as free Blu-ray movie players and 3-D glasses after initially overestimating the American consumer's appetite for pricey features.

Cutthroat television discounting has been a holiday rite in recent years as major retailers wrestle for a larger share of a big-ticket sales category. But analysts say this season could be different because more than half of all households in the country have at least one flat-screen TV, and newer gadgets such as Apple Inc.'s iPad tablet computer are enticing consumers.

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Walmart is out ahead of Black Friday with HDTV deals

For consumers who have waited for name-brand 32" HDTVs to drop below the $300 threshold, Walmart isn't even waiting until the Thanksgiving weekend timeframe - the offers start on Saturday. From TWICE:

Discounts on VIZIO TVs will include:

• $100 off a 26-inch 720p LED model, sale price $198;
• $50 off a 32-inch 720p LCD model, sale price $298;
• $50 off a 42-inch 1080p LCD sale price, $498;
• $100 off a 47-inch 1080p, 120Hz LCD, sale price $698, and;
• $200 off a 55-inch 1080p, 120Hz LCD, sale price $898.
  
  
  
  
  

Walmart to Purchase VUDU

Parks Associates research indicates U.S. premium video rentals and downloads will grow to $8.4 billion in 2014

After abandoning its initial online video plans in late 2007, Walmart has returned to this market with the announced acquisition of VUDU on February 22. With Best Buy working with Roxio CinemaNow, will Walmart leverage the VUDU acquisition to develop its own branded connected CE products?

Walmart is re-entering the OTT (over-the-top) market at an opportune time. Parks Associates forecasts that revenues for premium video rentals and downloads in the U.S. will grow from $2.3 billion in 2010 to $8.4 billion in 2014.

Given VUDU’s recent efforts to transition from a hardware vendor providing set-top boxes to a backend service provider of OTT content for connected CE devices, Parks Associates believes that this acquisition is an opportunity for Walmart to become a “category catalyst” in connected consumer electronics. VUDU currently is working with such CE vendors as LG, Mitsubishi, Samsung, SANYO, Sharp, Toshiba, and VIZIO.

Parks Associates projects that by 2014, more than 40% of transactional revenues for premium online video services will be through connected devices such as connected TVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles, and networked digital media set-top boxes. The presence of Walmart, with its retail muscle now in the online video space, could mean significant growth in the number and availability of Web-enabled consumer electronics products.

Walmart getting more Geeky with home theater installations

Walmart has begun offering home installation services for TVs, home theaters and PCs through a partnership with NEW, as cited from this article from Video Business.

The services, which start at $99 for a basic TV installation and $129 for a basic PC setup, will be sold via prepaid cards displayed on descriptive merchandisers and within the home-theater and computer aisles.

The offering follows a major assortment and display upgrade within Walmart's consumer electronics departments, and represents a major step toward filling the service vacuum that separates full-line discount stores from specialty consumer electronics dealers.

Walmart is certainly getting into fertile territory with consumer electronics installations. Our 2009 survey Customer Support in the Digital Home finds that about 20% of high-definition television and/or home theater buyers pay for professional installation services.