Walmart Offers US ‘Inflation Free’ Holiday Goods

Walmart is offering consumers in the U.S. “inflation-free” holiday baskets through Dec. 26.

Launched ahead of Thanksgiving and continuing through the day after Christmas, this offer includes competitive prices on a variety of items needed for traditional holiday meals, Walmart said in a press release.

The products are featured on a page on Walmart’s website promising “this year’s meal at last year’s price.”

“For the big holiday meals that matter — and all the weeknight dinners in between — Walmart has a selection of the items people want at the prices they need, during a time when American families need it most,” John Laney, executive vice president of food at Walmart U.S., said in the release.

This promotion comes when consumers’ inflation expectation has wavered little, despite the government reporting that monthly inflation levels have moderated.

As PYMNTS’ Karen Webster recently reported, if anything, consumers’ inflation expectation timeline has extended a month since PYMNTS began fielding its monthly consumer inflation sentiment studies of roughly 2,000 consumers in July.

Consumers are seeing how much more they’re paying for products this year than they did in 2020 and 2021 each time they go to a grocery store, restaurant or retail location, Webster said.

Acknowledging these consumer concerns, Walmart said in the press release that it is combatting rising costs by “removing inflation” from the goods in the holiday basket and addressing fears about supply by working with vendors to assure availability.

“Our promise to help people save money so they can live better is more important than ever, and we’re so grateful to have the opportunity to do that for our valued customers, now during the holiday season and every other day of the year,” Laney said.

Walmart’s rival Amazon has also found that consumers are trying to stretch dollars.

Bloomberg reported on Nov. 30 that Amazon saw over the Thanksgiving weekend that people care about getting a bargain, especially on expensive and discretionary items, like televisions and computers.

“Consumers are spending, but they’re being careful about trying to stretch their dollar,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said at the New York Times DealBook Conference, according to the report.

PYMNTS research has found that the inflation that is eroding consumers’ buying power is also impacting their plans for holiday shopping.

Fifteen million consumers who shopped for gifts in 2021 said they won’t be doing so this year, according to “The New Reality Check: The Paycheck-To-Paycheck Report: The Holiday Shopping Edition,” a PYMNTS and LendingClub collaboration.