Walmart+ Subscriptions May Soon Come With an Additional Shopping Perk
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Josephine Nesbit
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Walmart+ shoppers may have another perk added to their membership at store locations. Self-service lanes in some stores may be dedicated only to Walmart+ shoppers and Spark delivery drivers, Business Insider reported.
Drivers with Walmart’s Spark delivery platform told the publication they’ve seen limited kiosks at their stores. Photos with blocked-off lanes have also been popping up on social media recently.
Walmart spokesperson Joe Pennington told Business Insider that it is not an official directive from the corporate office. The company allows store managers at select stores to open and close traditional self-checkout lanes based on various factors, including customer and association feedback, shopping patterns and business needs, Pennington said.
The checkout lane flexibility even went viral on TikTok. Derik Fay, founder and CEO of 3F Management, posted a video on his @fayderik TikTok channel claiming that the move was an attempt by the retailer to get more people to sign up for Walmart+, which costs $12.95 per month or $98 a year.
“Walmart is charging $98 to people to use self-checkout,” he said. “In addition to you paying $98, Walmart is very selectively reducing the amount of available self-checkout lanes.”
He continued to say that the company is attempting to recoup losses from theft, and is charging customers to use self-checkout lanes.
However, Pennington noted that the lane restrictions were more like limited lanes to 10 items or fewer, and they are not intended to drive more sign-ups for Walmart+ subscriptions. The decision is intended to better manage checkout availability and customer flow.
Walmart isn’t the only retailer rethinking its approach to self-checkout due to lower sales and theft affecting profitability. A recent study also found that self-checkout contributes to “partial shrink,” where customers accidentally fail to scan and pay for all items in their cart, Business Insider reported.
Target rolled out Express Self-Checkout, which limits the number of items shoppers can buy at registers to 10 items or fewer, according to a company news release. The retailer also announced its plan to launch a new loyalty program called Target Circle 360, but there’s no mention of limited access to only its members, Verify reported.
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