Wal-Mart Gears Up With Free Shipping, No Minimum Purchase Cost To Fight Amazon's Prime Day

A Reuters report said Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. WMT will offer free shipping with no minimum purchase on all online orders for five days beginning July 11.

Prime Day, the annual sales event catered toward Amazon Prime members, has become crucial to the online retailer's growth plan. According to Reuters, Amazon expects Prime Day 2016 to be bigger than last year's event.

In 2015, the online retail giant offered 100,000 deals exclusively for Prime members, with customers ordering 34.4 million items, exceeding post-Thanksgiving Black Friday records.

Wal-Mart is trying to gain shoppers' attention to boost its slowing online sales, as sales through the website and mobile app increased 7 percent in the latest quarter compared with 17 percent in the year-ago period.

Related Link: Black Friday In July: Retailers Such As Target, Gap Hoping To Piggyback Amazon's Prime Day

"We believe saving money every day is better than just one, and that all customers should save, not only some," Wal-Mart said in a statement that directly takes on Amazon's shopping event.

Reuters added, "Wal-Mart's free shipping offer will be in addition to the recently launched 30-day free trial of ShippingPass, its unlimited 2-day shipping program, which costs $49 per year. Wal-Mart said customer sign-ups for ShippingPass have more than quadrupled since the offer launch last week."

Meanwhile, other retailers such as Target Corporation TGT, Sears Holdings Corp SHLD and Banana Republic, a unit of Gap Inc GPS, are offering deals around the same time as big Prime Day sale.

Shares of Wal-Mart closed Friday's regular trading session at $73.84 and were trading up 0.42 percent at $74.18 shortly after Monday's opening bell.

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