Walmart and price and CrowdSaver

I teach two classes, Strategic Messaging and Market Research, through a local nonprofit called BiGAUSTIN. Attendees are budding entrepreneurs and/or recent start-ups. Yesterday, during Strategic Messaging, the topic of differentiating towards price came up. I love this topic! Why? Because Walmart makes the perfect example for what being about price is all about. As a conversation starter, I like to use a “when you think of Walmart what comes to mind” exercise (quick! no need to put time or much thought in here.) Then, we continue by contrasting those things mentioned against category attributes. And lastly, we might do the same exercise for another brand like Kmart or Target.

This morning I read about Walmart and CrowdSaver- their new social promotional cost-savings platform . The workings are somewhat similar to Groupon, which asks consumers, collectively to show interest in a particular sale or coupon to unlock a deal. With CrowdSaver, Walmart posts a sale price on its Facebook page. Consumers reap the sale if and only if enough Facebook users have Liked the post. The first deal was posted on Monday and it read,

“Introducing CrowdSaver: Putting you in charge of lower prices. If the deal gets enough Likes, the price drops for everyone. Our first deal is the Element 42″ Plasma TV with Wall Mount. Get it for $398 instead of $488. Only fans get to vote, so rally your friends to Like it too!”

This particular sale was actualized after it received 5,000 Likes, however Walmart’s Facebook page says the “threshold of required votes may vary for each CrowdSaver item.” Consumers can take advantage of the sale (Element 42″ Plasma) starting Friday morning.

Wanda Young, Walmart’s senior director of digital strategy says of the platform, “Our idea is to bring savings to everyone. Once it goes live, it will be there and at that price. It’s not any kind of promotional gimmick; it’s there for anyone to take advantage.”

Walmart is (again) about price and 1,928,146 people Like it.