Walmart’s Holiday Deals: 20,000 Rollbacks and Cyber Event Starting Tomorrow!

Photo courtesy of The Huffington Post

Walmart has released their Holiday plans for this holiday season. Walmart announced its plans for the holiday season, including tweaks to Savings Catcher, an online price matching experiment, and an online sale rivaling Black Friday and Cyber Monday to kick off the season. This is what they had to say:

“Helping families deliver an amazing Christmas doesn't start on Black Friday, it starts now,” said Duncan Mac Naughton, chief merchandising officer, Walmart U.S. “As soon as they put away their Halloween costumes, our customers start prepping for Thanksgiving, buying Christmas trees and shopping for gifts. They want the best deals now and we’re here for them today, next week and throughout the season. Our strategy is simple: lead with low prices, offer the best brands, make shopping easier than ever and bring the holiday joy that only Walmart can deliver.”

New rollbacks on 20,000 items

Beginning November 1st, Walmart will feature 20,000 fresh price rollbacks across the store including electronics and toys. Walmart covered a number of specific examples, which I've listed below.

• Xbox One for $349, previously $399
• Samsung 46” HDTV for $528, was $578
• Dell Inspiron Touch (15.6” Inspiron 15 Laptop PC) for $479, was $549
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 11” Action Figure for $15.88, was $19.97
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle High Flyin Blimp for $24.76, was $29.97
• Frozen Light-up Dress for $28.88, was $34.97
• Hasbro Nerf Rebelle Secrets and Spies Agent Bow Blaster for $19.88, was $29.96
• 16 Schwinn bikes – Cosmo and Twilight for $69, was $78.87
• LEGO Lego Movie Spaceship for $80, was $99.97
• RCA 9-inch Tablet with 8GB memory for $69, was $89
• Sceptre 50-inch LED HDTV for $349, was $379

15 early Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals

Beginning at midnight Pacific Time on 11/3, look for a 24-hour holiday cyber savings event, which will feature “Black Friday and Cyber Monday-like deals.” All deals from this event will be available for same day in-store pickup. Cyber deals will include:

• Element 40” LED HDTV for $199, was $298
• NutriNinja Pro Blender for $65, was $99
• Crayola Paint Maker for $12, was $18.88
• Sony 48” LED HDTV for $348, was $448
• 48" Sony HDTV Black Friday Deal
• Nintendo 2DS Handheld Video Game System for $79, was $129
• Barbie Dreamhouse for $120, was $148.82 and
• Nextbook 7.85” tablet with 8GB memory for $49, was $99

Similar to Target, Walmart will offer an interactive layer for their toy book which will allow kids to add items to their wish list directly from the toy book. This feature rolls out on Friday 11/7, so we’re looking to the toy book to be released the same day, of course. 

What about online price matching? 

Maybe, and several reports we saw today speculate it could be rolled out in time for the holiday, but they’re not talking about it right now. What we do know is that Walmart is currently testing the concept in a small handful of markets including Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Phoenix and northwest Arkansas.

Savings Catcher now catches Thanksgiving dinner.

The popular Savings Catcher app has been expanded to include a whole slew of products that were previously ineligible. Walmart specifically called out turkeys and hams as two favorite examples. Other products that will be eligible for Savings Catcher price matching will include the Top 20 Toy List, as well as other “general merchandise.”

Search My Store for in-store availability

A new feature within the Walmart app allows shoppers to check their local store for item availability. Search My Store is currently available on Android, and will be available for iOS devices by mid-November.

But what about Black Friday?

Walmart has been and will continue to be tight-lipped on the topic of Black Friday, and the Corporate Communications team later deflected questions about it from various reporters. I was hoping this announcement would finally put the rumors about their Black Friday start time to bed. Walmart has reiterated its commitment to going bigger and better and winning the holiday shopping season this year, in which I feel that they might have something big planned for possibly Thanksgiving morning, like we've seen with Kmart. If everyone else is opening at 6pm, we expect Walmart to start earlier. I'm predicting we'll see the Black Friday Ad sometime next week.