Create a Rewards Program That Keeps Walmart Shoppers Coming Back
Company: Walmart Labs
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are a product manager at Walmart and have been asked to design a loyalty program for its customers. Explain how you would approach it: what the program is for, which shoppers it should serve first, how members would earn and use their benefits, what you would ship in the first version, and how you would tell whether it is working.
```hint Mind the price promise
Walmart already sells itself on low prices every day. Before choosing a reward, ask what it adds for a shopper who expects the lowest shelf price, and what it might cost that promise.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Is the main aim to attract new customers, to get existing customers to buy more of their weekly basket at Walmart, or to keep them from drifting to rivals, and over what time frame?
- Should the program serve in-store shoppers, online and app shoppers, or both, and must it work for people who pay cash and never open the app?
- Is this a brand-new program, or should it connect to Walmart's existing paid membership?
- How may rewards be funded: from Walmart's own margin, from supplier-paid offers, or only through perks that are not price cuts?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A goal stated as a business outcome (share of household spend, visit frequency, retention), with a reason a loyalty program is a better lever than simply cutting prices.
- Segments within Walmart's very broad customer base and a deliberate choice of whom to serve first.
- Concrete earn and redeem mechanics that fit the low-price positioning and work at the register as well as in the app.
- Program economics: cost per member, who pays for rewards, and how to avoid paying for purchases that would have happened anyway.
- Success metrics with guardrails, and a rollout or test design that isolates incremental lift.
### Follow-up Questions
- How would you show that members spend more because of the program, rather than because your most loyal shoppers were the ones who signed up?
- A competitor launches a points program with a generous earn rate. Do you match it? Why or why not?
- How should the program treat pharmacy purchases, given how sensitive that data is?
Overview: A product manager prompt asking how you would design a loyalty program for Walmart customers. It tests goal setting, choosing which shoppers to serve first, reward mechanics that suit an everyday-low-price retailer, program economics, and measuring the incremental lift a program creates.