Walmart Is Helping Customers Cut Their Cords

The cord-cutting campaign has a powerful new ally. Retail giant Walmart is now leveraging consumer interest in cord-cutting to drive sales for streaming devices and antennas.

The cord-cutting promotion, which started in early June, encourages more than just the purchase of a streaming device—it also advocates in favor of not buying cable. The company claims that customers can save $1,000 per year by parting ways with their cable companies.

To help customers do this, Walmart lays out the steps they need to follow to make that happen. It has a special webpage dedicated to the directive, and, for in-store shoppers, prominent signage alongside a collection of streaming devices and antennas. First, Walmart advocates that consumers should switch to streaming TV; then, they should cancel their cable or satellite subscriptions.

Walmart is willing to walk customers through the cord-cutting process, which is one reason why the promotion could work in its favor. Most consumers still see cord-cutting as too complicated to bother with, and don’t know what steps they need to take. That uncertainty isn’t an issue here.

The store has also created cord-cutting packages to simplify things. The “bundles” include a Wi-Fi router, a streaming box and an HDTV antenna, sometimes even a television as well.

It may be a sound strategy from a sales perspective, but it’s surprising for a major retailer to promote its products at the expense of another, separate, industry. Notably, Walmart doesn’t mention its own stake in the game—it owns the streaming service VUDU.

It remains to be see whether Walmart’s plan will be successful. But it begs the question…could it be time to consider running an anti cord-cutting campaign in your business to counter Walmart’s strategy?