Amazon Prime Day: Walmart launches rival sales on Amazon’s birthday

Online marketplace is celebrating 20 years with a day of sales — but Walmart is planning to try and spoil it

Andrew Griffin
Tuesday 14 July 2015 11:07 BST
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People rush into a Walmart store in Miami, Florida, on 25 November 2005
People rush into a Walmart store in Miami, Florida, on 25 November 2005 (Getty)

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Walmart is trying to spoil Amazon’s birthday, launching its own day of sales to rival the online retailer’s special occasion.

Amazon Prime Day is set to run on July 15, and will offer “more deals than Black Friday”, according to the site. But Walmart is launching a rival event, with over 2,000 deals.

The site is running its deals in part to counteract Amazon’s ruling that everyone must get an Amazon Prime account — which costs £79 per year — to take part in the offer. “We just don't believe you should pay a fee to get a better price,” Walmart spokesperson Ravi Jariwala told USA Today.

The company will be reducing its minimum price for free shipping, putting on 2,000 “rollbacks” — what it calls offers — and running special “atomic deals”.

That is a similar setup to Amazon’s own day. During Prime Day, the company will be running Lightning Deals added throughout the day — where new products are added every ten minutes and stay up until they run out — as well as other offers.

The Walmart deals are thought only to be running in the US. Amazon Prime day will day be available in the UK, Spain, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Canada and Austria, as well as the US.

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