{"id":152,"date":"2012-06-05T16:13:00","date_gmt":"2012-06-05T20:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom.chainstoreguide.com\/2012\/06\/walmarts-online-pay-with-cash-may-offer-game-changing-advantages\/"},"modified":"2012-06-05T16:13:00","modified_gmt":"2012-06-05T20:13:00","slug":"walmarts-online-pay-with-cash-may-offer-game-changing-advantages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/2012\/06\/walmarts-online-pay-with-cash-may-offer-game-changing-advantages\/","title":{"rendered":"Walmart\u2019s Online \u2018Pay with Cash\u2019 May Offer Game Changing Advantages"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year this space featured an Insight titled, How Walmart\u2019s Scattered Merchandising Policies Helped Save Kmart.<\/a>\u00a0 The piece noted Walmart\u2019s then recent decision to imminently reinstate its long abandoned layaway program for the upcoming holiday season.<\/p>\n

Walmart had dismissed its traditional layaway policy in 2006 despite the cries of many customers who strongly wanted to continue to take advantage of the program and industry experts who wondered if this would force a significant number of loyal customers to seek other retail options for their all-important holiday gift giving.\u00a0 At the time Walmart indicated that the popularity of credit and debit cards along with very profitable gift cards made layaway obsolete.<\/p>\n

This opus proved to be music to the ears of competing retailers, most notably the long struggling Kmart.\u00a0 On Walmart\u2019s announcement of the withdrawal of its layaway plan, Kmart promoted its determination to extend its layaway policy to its customers with no end in sight.\u00a0 Despite Kmart\u2019s struggles to be relevant, the retailer has at times successfully managed to attract niche groups through specific marketing appeals.\u00a0 Layaway was one such successful project which actually gained Kmart the loyalty of the many consumers who saw layaway as a holiday gift-giving Godsend.<\/p>\n

At the same time Kmart\u2019s early use of the Martha Stewart phenomenon brought the company a cross section of loyal shoppers.\u00a0 Since dropping Martha Stewart the company has sought to attract the Latina consumer with Martha Stewart-like promotions involving collections based on Latina stars, most recently featuring Modern Family and commercial phenom Sofia Vergara.<\/p>\n

The retailer also launched a first of its kind, fully customized YouTube channel in Spanish. The channel consisted of\u00a0novelas or soap operas that include an end story. \u00a0The first was called\u00a0Madres y Comadres.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>The series focused on two Latina women and the challenges they face raising a family in America while enjoying their Hispanic\u00a0culture and maintaining their family heritage.<\/p>\n

There is no question that Walmart\u2019s dismissal of its layaway program significantly boosted Kmart\u2019s meager fortunes.\u00a0 At the same time losing the program did little to enhance its reputation with the ever growing legions of shoppers pledging loyalty to aggressively expanding and now recessionary visionary dollar stores.\u00a0 For well more than a decade Walmart had reluctantly admired dollar retailers as they consistently gained market share and expanded product appeal and offerings through good economies and bad.\u00a0 Dropping layaway was seen as antagonistic by many shoppers as expanding grocery offerings at dollar stores was viewed with great favor by many of these same people.<\/p>\n

Now Walmart has begun to initiate a brand new program which observers see as a positive to many of those customers Walmart has tried to woo back by reinstating layaway and announcing an overall drop of grocery prices.\u00a0 Walmart has become the first retailer to launch an online \u201cPay with Cash\u201d service that offers cash payment options for orders at Walmart.com in the United States.<\/p>\n

Walmart is the first major retailer to offer online purchases without the need for financial services or a credit, debit or prepaid card. \u00a0Since the majority of Walmart\u2019s in-store transactions are paid in cash or cash equivalents such as debit cards (only about 15% of its transactions are paid through credit) the company expects its Pay with Cash<\/em> program will allow the same payment options online, which is expected to appeal to a large portion of the company\u2019s customer base.<\/p>\n

The Pay with Cash<\/em>option, allows an online shopper to place an order on walmart.com and, during checkout, select the “Cash<\/em>” option and a shipping preference. The customer immediately receives an order number on the order confirmation and an email receipt of the order. The item is reserved in the system.\u00a0 The customer then has a 48 hour window to bring the printed order to any cash register at any Walmart store or Neighborhood Market.\u00a0 Once cash payment is completed in the store and received, shipping then occurs via Site to Store or to a requested address.<\/p>\n

In addition to the Pay with Cash<\/em> program\u2019s obvious appeal to the many who lack credit or are suspicious of the perils of overindulging one\u2019s card, the Pay with Cash<\/em> program could prove to offer a great side benefit.\u00a0 Retailers are increasingly stressing as they worry that smart phones and devices are rendering their stores virtual showrooms for Internet-based retailers.\u00a0 Programs such as Pay with Cash<\/em> and free site to store shipping could add a great vitality to the importance of visiting and actually receiving product at the store level.<\/p>\n

Competitors, most notably Target and Best Buy, have been publicly stewing as they increasingly sense that consumers regard their big boxes as pretty much showrooms for Internet-based competitor\u2019s pricing tactics.\u00a0 It is likely that Walmart\u2019s attempt to appeal to credit challenged and cautious customers will actually increase its customer base while reinvigorating the attraction and relevance of actual store visits.\u00a0 No doubt, a store visit to pay for or pick up an online transaction should often lead to additional in-store purchases of related accessories, needed groceries or a few impulse items.\u00a0 Such a result would put the importance of the actual big box back on the map.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year this space featured an Insight titled, How Walmart\u2019s Scattered Merchandising Policies Helped Save Kmart.\u00a0 The piece noted Walmart\u2019s then recent decision to imminently reinstate its long abandoned layaway program for the upcoming holiday season. Walmart had dismissed its traditional layaway policy in 2006 despite the cries of many customers who strongly wanted to… Continue reading Walmart\u2019s Online \u2018Pay with Cash\u2019 May Offer Game Changing Advantages<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"post-template-no-sidebar.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discount-specialty","tag-insight","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chainstoreguide.com\/offthechain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}