Amazon and Walmart Want More Than Your Prescription

The retail battle is bleeding over into healthcare. It has been for a while, as healthcare and pharma firms increasingly recognize the benefits of physical retail’s distribution capabilities.

But recent headlines from both Amazon and Walmart underscore that as digital distribution starts to equal the benefits of brick-and-mortar locations, a new category is emerging, one that might be called “continuous care commerce.”

Amazon Pharmacy said it will offer Eli Lilly’s newly approved oral GLP-1 treatment Foundayo with real-time availability, transparent pricing, automatic manufacturer coupons and same-day delivery in nearly 3,000 cities and towns, expanding to 4,500 by year-end.

Walmart, meanwhile, has expanded its Better Care Services platform to support customers who are taking or considering GLP-1 drugs. The retailer is combining virtual care, nutrition services, digital tools and access to its nearly 4,600 pharmacies, while also offering same-day delivery in as fast as an hour in many markets and free delivery for Walmart+ members. The platform now connects customers to a group of third-party providers spanning fitness, dietitian services, AI-supported coaching and telehealth-based obesity care.

This new category of continuous care commerce sits at the intersection of retail, healthcare and subscription services, and it is being defined by ongoing engagement rather than episodic transactions. The GLP-1 drug is merely the entry point for Amazon and Walmart.

See also: Amazon and Walmart Deepen Healthcare Push With Prescription Delivery and Telehealth Expansion

From Prescriptions to Platforms

On the surface, both GLP-1 announcements are about the same consumer opportunity: meeting demand for high-profile weight-loss therapies, including Lilly’s new oral option. But the operating models of the two retailers are different.

Amazon is leaning into speed, inventory visibility and digital convenience. Its message is that pharmacy should work more like modern eCommerce — customers should know whether a drug is in stock, what it will cost and how quickly it can arrive. Amazon is also pairing home delivery with plans for pharmacist-supported kiosks at select One Medical locations, tightening the handoff between diagnosis, prescription and fulfillment.

Walmart’s strategy is broader and more omnichannel. Its announcement treats medication access as only one piece of a more fragmented weight-management journey that also includes provider access, nutrition support, behavior change and insurance navigation.

That is why Walmart is using Better Care Services as an orchestration layer, bringing together services such as Aaptiv, Berry Street, Curai Health, MyCare by Twin Health and Wheel alongside pharmacy fulfillment, a redesigned GLP-1 destination on Walmart.com and nutrition guidance through its Nutrition Hub.

At a high-level view, it’s becoming apparent to observers that Amazon and Walmart are not just competing to fill prescriptions, they are competing to own more of the digital healthcare journey. GLP-1 medications, which often require long-term use and behavioral adjustments, are uniquely suited to this emerging strategy. Patients need not only prescriptions but also guidance on diet, exercise and side-effect management.

This can create recurring touchpoints and revenue opportunities across multiple domains such as telehealth visits, nutritional products, fitness services and even grocery purchases aligned with treatment plans.

In “The New Checkout: Crimped Consumers Lean Into Online Retail and Digital Wallets,” PYMNTS Intelligence finds that financial pressure is reshaping shopping behavior in ways that go beyond broad spending trends, with high-stress online retail shoppers 34% less likely to buy from Amazon than low-stress shoppers.

See also: Retailers Focus on Data and Payments as Shoppers Pull Back

The Rise of Continuous Care Commerce

The winning formula in this new landscape may not be about dispensing the most prescriptions or offering the lowest price. The ultimate prize that Amazon and Walmart are chasing is one that sits closer to becoming the default platform through which patients experience care.

For Amazon, that could mean embedding healthcare into its broader ecosystem of Prime services, devices and data. For Walmart, it could mean leveraging its physical footprint and everyday low-price positioning to become the most accessible healthcare destination in the country.

Same-day delivery of prescription drugs, in-store kiosks that dispense medication minutes after a consultation and integrated platforms that guide patients through complex treatment journeys were once disparate innovations. Now they are coalescing into a coherent model.

For payments, banking and FinTech executives, the significance goes beyond healthcare.

GLP-1s are creating a new commerce stack around recurring prescriptions, insurance adjudication, cash-pay pricing, coupon automation, membership benefits and adjacent spending on food, fitness and clinical services.

Amazon’s play is to compress time-to-therapy and digitize the transaction. Walmart’s is to bundle fulfillment with surrounding services and store-based accessibility. Both are turning pharmacy into a strategic platform business, not a back-of-store function. The contest now is over who can remove friction most effectively — from prescription and payment to delivery, adherence and follow-on care.