Walmart retained its crown as the king of retail with the most impressive Black Friday 2018 sales figures of all the major outlets (among both online and brick-and-mortar shoppers), but this big-box megastore — which has enjoyed an increasingly large internet presence in recent years in an effort to compete with Amazon’s dominance — didn’t stop bringing the rollbacks during Cyber Monday and Cyber Week. Based on what we saw last year, it’s a good call that we can anticipate another unstoppable wave of deals at Walmart from Black Friday through Cyber Monday 2019 and continuing through the entire holiday season.
Walmart’s online Savings Center serves as a one-stop “online storefront” of sorts from which you can shop on the site and comb through its many deals 365 days out of the year. If Walmart has your email address, you can also sign up to have daily updates sent right to your inbox with links to new price cuts and special offers in the categories of interest that you choose in the Savings Center. You don’t actually need to hit up the Savings Center to find Walmart’s best online deals, of course, but it’s generally the easiest way to do so unless you’re keeping an eye on one specific product.
Walmart deals going on now
Walmart is known for running frequent rollbacks on pretty much every sort of product it sells, but on top of those regular low prices, Walmart’s Savings Center also runs regular promotions, special offers, and clearance sales. If Walmart’s retail machine were a race car, it never runs on cruises control — the driver always has the gas pedal pressed down to the floor. Sure, you’ll find Walmart’s best deals and most unbeatable prices during once-a-year sales like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but early shoppers can still find plenty of these blowout-level prices on many items every day leading up to the big events(and even afterwards). If you do see an fantastic deal on an item that’s been sitting on your must-have list in the run-up to Cyber Monday, don’t sit on it: Walmart changes up its teaser sale items often, usually switching them out after only two or three days at the most — if they don’t sell out before then, that is.
What to expect from Walmart
Simply put: Lots and lots of 4K smart TV deals. Walmart plays a major role during the Cyber Monday action with offers on iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, video game consoles, gaming accessories, and a myriad of other electronics that will be on sale throughout Thanksgiving week, but Walmart’s 4K UHD TV deals have been largely unrivaled since last year with a superb selection and (more importantly) almost always the best deals.
You may find a better offer on one or two 4K TV models somewhere else, but there’s no denying that overall, Walmart is almost impossible to beat when it comes to sheer selection. Just bear in mind that to get the very best price on that UHD smart TV you’ve been eyeballing, your best course of action is usually to buy one that is sold directly by Walmart and not from one of the third-party vendors that are also offering stuff through the Walmart Marketplace (thankfully, you can easily filter out these Marketplace sellers in the sidebar on the online storefront).
What Walmart did last Cyber Monday
Leading up to, during, and after Cyber Monday 2018, Walmart showed impressive responsiveness to the prices of items on sale from other retailers (we mostly mean Amazon, but that also includes Best Buy, Target, and B&H). For instance, we saw a lot of price movements on Instant Pots and Google Home Mini smart hubs at Walmart, to name just two very popular examples. When stuff like this went out of stock online, Walmart was quick to highlight other stuff and/or similar items, often making immediate price changes to keep the attention of shoppers and to stay competitive against other stores.
But Walmart’s secret weapon in the online retail contest is local store pickup. Local pickup works in two ways: When you purchase an item from the Walmart website (that is, from Walmart directly and not from a third-party seller), you almost always have the option of having it delivered to a nearby location for pickup. Shoppers concerned about packages sitting on their front steps until they get home from work, for example, or those who already shop at their local Walmart for things like groceries, might prefer to pick up an expensive purchase safely in-store.
Another advantage Walmart has is that it gives shoppers free two-day shipping on a ton of items, whereas free shipping offers from other stores are often considerably slower or require some sort of premium membership (we’re looking at you, Amazon). Also, when Walmart’s online stock is running low or totally sold out, many times a retail location close to your home will still have the item — no shipping required at all — and you can order it from the store’s inventory and then simply go pick it up in-person right away. Every product listing on Walmart’s website points out the local availability, if applicable, as well as your options regarding store delivery.
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