Huge Mistakes That Are Costing You Money At Walmart

Walmart is one of America's most impactful retailers. There's no getting around the brand's reach, and for many consumers this can sometimes mean falling victim to the company's strategies to maximize spending. Whether online or in store, Walmart deploys some of the same tricks that grocery stores often use to get you to spend more money. This means that shopping strategies that work to help minimize your splurge spending on those purchases will also help out in keeping you on target at Walmart. Fortunately for consumers, standard grocery strategies aren't the only things you can fall back on to prevent yourself from leaking at the wallet.

The company's massive presence means it can offer low prices on all kinds of goods. Right from the outset, this can help you save on your everyday shopping needs if you deploy smart money saving habits like buying in bulk whenever possible (a key piece of advice that Mark Cuban offers for better money management). But intelligent use of some Walmart policies, tools, and knowledge can help reduce your costs even farther. These mistakes are easy to make when shopping at Walmart and elsewhere, so if you can identify them and reduce their prevalence in your purchasing habits you'll easily see huge improvements in cash flow and budget management while utilizing all the best that Walmart has to offer.

Walmart introduced the Walmart+ subscription service in 2020. Subscribing to a Walmart program (and paying for the service) might not sound like something that you need or want on the surface. However, as it stands the product comes out to $8.17 per month and includes the basic subscription tier for Paramount+, a streaming service that costs $7.99 per month on its own. If you're already a subscriber to this streaming library, canceling your membership and signing up for Walmart+ instead is a great way to get the same content for an extra 18 cents while locking in a wide range of extra perks.

For those who aren't already Paramount+ users, the digital library is a solid reason to consider signing up for Walmart's subscription service alone, but the additional features can also be a big money saver. For instance, Walmart+ users get 10 cents off per gallon at a network of over 13,000 gas stations across the country (including Exxon, Mobil, and Walmart & Murphy). When ordering online you'll get free shipping on all orders regardless of the total price, 25% off Burger King meals, and more. Savings at the pump alone account for nearly two-thirds of the subscription's cost (with average drivers using 656 gallons per year, equating to a price reduction of $65.60).

As is the case with just about any store in the U.S., Walmart consistently changes its prices while shuffling stock around to accommodate outgoing inventory and incoming arrivals (including the advertising of "rollback pricing"). There will naturally be markdowns that take place from time to time on all kinds of goods on the shelves. Walmart isn't the only store that moves clearance items to specific areas of the store, so looking for reductions in a centralized space isn't a concept that only features in savings strategies here. But Walmart does do something interesting with its markdowns that can help you get the best bargains possible.

Numerous markdown events can happen on the same product, especially if it's a particularly slow seller. If something with a price reduction sticker catches your eye, pay particular attention to the final numbers on the item's price tag. The last digit (the single cent integer) is generally an indicator of whether additional reductions are coming down the pike or not. If the price ends in a zero, regardless of the other numbers you're likely looking at its lowest offered price point ($19.60, $2.00, or $153.10, for example). Other ending digits indicate that more price changes are a possibility, if the item continues to sit on the shelves, that is. Having this knowledge in your back pocket allows you to make more educated buying decisions on reduction items at Walmart, saving you money in the process or avoiding an overpayment if plenty of stock remains but the price hasn't yet reached its lowest markdown.

Such a common mistake, but one that Walmart shoppers continue to make with startling regularity: The purchase of brand name items is often a huge waste of money. Walmart's "Great Value" brand carries a dizzying selection of grocery items and other typical goods found throughout Walmart's shelves. This means that you can save money on the products you need across a huge swath of purchases by just comparison shopping between the store's own brand and the name brand alternatives found next to them.

Of particular interest in this realm of savings is the reality that a subset of umbrella branding practices are commonly deployed across industries, and may be at play in certain Walmart branded products, too. If you look closely at some goods, you'll find that even though they might showcase different brand names, the packaging and product are exactly the same. In the UK and Ireland, for instance, food products are commonly manufactured for a range of branded names and individual stores, but they're produced on the same factory floor using the exact same packaging and ingredients. Whether you're buying an identical copy or not, Walmart's in house brand will unlock access to price savings on plenty of everyday necessities while giving you virtually the same product.

Coupons are a common feature of the Walmart shopping experience. Printed discount offers can be found in the local paper and through digital sources. Having a quick look through you local print media is a great way to get a few bucks knocked off your grocery or household shopping bill when heading into Walmart. However, there are other ways to take advantage of discounted pricing.

Coupon codes can be used when shopping at Walmart's online outlet, and you'll often find these codes in promotional emails from the store, on the Walmart app, or through other digital channels. Lastly, it's a good idea to consider hunting for a discount when shopping, especially if you're buying a large or expensive item, or a specifically unique good. Searching for sites like Coupon Cabin and browsing the active coupon codes available for use at Walmart will give you an even greater swath of discount offers to utilize when exploring price saving tools.

Discount sites like Coupon Cabin aren't just great for getting your hands on discount options. This and other sites like it act as cash-back portals, too. This means that if you order your purchases at Walmart through their interface, you'll get a cash-back bonus just for using the site. This is quite like the cash-back offers that credit card issuers have put out into the market for years. And speaking of cash-back cards, there's no reason you can't double up on your purchasing tool perks.

Spending money with a cash-back or rewards points card allows you to accumulate cost savings with a trickle of benefits coming back into your account. Purchasing through a cash-back portal with your cash-back card introduces two layers of benefits that kick back to you. If you get 2% just by using your coupon extension or website plus another 3% in kickbacks from the card you used, that adds up to a 5% savings on the total cost – if you use the card intelligently and pay it off in full every month, that is.

The Walmart app offers a handy way to explore price reductions, deals, and coupon offers. Using the app before heading into the store gives you an easy way to find what you're looking for and tally up the expected cost you're looking at as you start to fill your cart. You can even use the app to shop online, sipping the store experience altogether.

There's a significant however involved in the app's convenience and service, though. User data points to a major uptick in spending by those who frequent the app. Shoppers who use it spend 40% more than those who don't, leading to a huge incentive for Walmart to get as many people online through its mobile service as possible. By consistently using the app to shop, you may fall into the trap of overspending — becoming exactly the type of shopper that Walmart is hoping for. However, because it's so lucrative for the company, plenty of incentives, like price reduction offers and coupon codes, can be found through the app portal. Using the mobile tool sparingly is the best way to blend price savings with cautious buying habits that don't balloon into overspending territory.

In the same way that shopping via the Walmart app can lead to overspending, so too can an over-reliance on the physical storefront. Ordering online and using curbside pickup acts as important buffers against the impulse shopping gremlins that creep into the picture when you set foot in a Walmart location. To be fair, this is a potential issue for shoppers in a wide range of retail stores. Physical shopping centers are built around the concept of upselling. Aisle layout, endcap design, and the little nick-nacks that you'll find in the checkout lanes are all placed specifically to entice you to pick up just one or two extra little things.

Sometimes those impulse buys are big ticket items — like a game console or surround sound system to go along with the new TV you've meticulously researched. Other impulse splurges are small additions such as a candy bar or bottle of soda at the checkout line. Any upsell the store can create in your cart translates into added profit for them and less cash in your bank account, however. This isn't to say that splurging on a little something extra for yourself or a loved one is never ok, just that Walmart has crafted a meticulously curated plan to upsell its customers in each aisle of its cavernous retail stores. If you aren't using digital tools and other helping hands to reduce your impulse spending, you're likely leaving too much behind at the register.

Walmart is often a low price merchant. It's easy to assume that Walmart will offer all manner of goods at the lowest price available, but you can't rely on this feature for all your shopping needs. If Walmart priced literally everything it sold at lower prices than every competitor around there eventually wouldn't be any competition left. The sheer fact that Walmart hasn't priced everyone else out means it simply can't be the end all be all for consumers — nor would that be a good thing for consumers.

It's always a good idea to comparison shop. This is especially true for large purchases. Price discrepancies can be even greater on expensive goods, and some stores will offer intermittent discounts on these kinds of goods without warning. Walmart might have the best average prices on an item throughout much of the year, but when a $100 discount takes effect at one of its competitors, the price might plummet elsewhere. Looking for price options on the things you need is a simple task. There are so many retailers offering crossover product listings and virtually everyone is online in some for or another today. This means a quick internet search for your next pair of shoes, an important power tool, or a new bike will give you a good sense of where to ultimately make the purchase: It might be Walmart, or somewhere else.

Walmart has fully embraced the utility of online shopping. Buying online allows you to choose between picking up your purchases in a store near your home or having your items sent right to your door. If you are a Walmart+ user, it might generally be in your best interest to select home delivery, even if you're buying just a few low priced goods. But even if you get free delivery on your online purchases, picking your shipment up from the store might still be a valuable option.

That's because Walmart offers pickup discounts on some items it sells. The online price may already be a good enough bargain to make you go through with the purchase at Walmart rather than with one of its competitors, but tacking on an additional price reduction for the small inconvenience of going to the store when the package arrives rather than opening your door can save you even more money. Any time you shop online with Walmart, it's a good idea to look for pickup discounts. You might even be able to swing into get your package while you're already out and about or when making a trip to Walmart for other shopping needs, killing two birds with one stone and saving money while you're at it (three birds, then?)

Shopping without a list is a big no-no. Unless you're intensely principled and get the same items every week while knowing where everything is, a list is a key ingredient in a successful trip to any big box store. Walmart is no exception, and to make matters worse for the casual consumer, Walmart's Supercenters amplify the impulse fatigue. These stores are gigantic. They're expanded shopping centers that include departments ranging across nearly every theme of the shopping experience you can think of. Supercenters are designed to act as a one-size-fits-all solution to nearly any kind of customer's precise needs. They stock items that run the gamut but have to upsize their physical presence in order to achieve this stock availability.

The result is a massive store that's hard to navigate and takes a considerable amount of time to enter, pick out goods, and leave. Even if you're running into the store for one item, you may have to travel all the way to the back to pick it out, forcing a minutes-long walk. A shopper could conceivably "get all their steps in for the day" just doing a run through the aisles and losing track of their mental shopping list. The longer you're in a store, the more likely you are to spend more money, so going in with a list helps keep you on track and cut down on the time it takes you to complete the task.

If you know the online price before you head into a Walmart — or use your app to scan barcodes to check prices against their online listings — you can snag a few key discounts on items that haven't yet been marked down in the physical location. Because Walmart stores are so large and run such hulking operations, things can easily slip through the cracks as new pricing directives and other instructions come down to local retail locations from corporate offices.

Walmart stores aren't always immediate with price changes, so looking up the offered price with your phone app or having a look at online prices before going in to pick up groceries or a specific item (like when trying on and picking out the perfect pair of shoes in store, for example) can pay major dividends. Walmart "price matches" itself when there's a discrepancy between the online price and the listed price in a store. The store will reduce the item to the web rate and honor the offer. On the other hand, a store may be slow in boosting prices, too, from time to time. If you know the price off a certain good and find it cheaper in the store, keeping this information to yourself might yield a decent discount or clearance rate unique to your local Walmart.