Hi, I'm Dan Pramak and welcome to Axios Recap, presented by Bridge Bank. Be safe, venture wisely.

Today's Wednesday, September 2nd. The Dow is up, job growth is down, and we're focused on the first legitimate rival to Amazon Prime.

Amazon and Walmart have spent the past decade-plus locked its to Amazon Prime.

Amazon and Walmart have spent the past decade plus locked in a battle for U.S. retail supremacy, with Amazon largely viewed as the online champ and Walmart as the

brick and mortar master.

But the first part of that might be about to change, as Walmart yesterday announced a September

15th launch date for what it's calling Walmart Plus, a service designed to compete head-to-head

with Amazon Prime. Like Amazon Prime, Walmart Plus is a subscription service that lets users get

fast, no-fee deliveries on a large selection of products.

It also includes some gas discounts and the ability to skip checkout lines inside of physical

Walmarts. It's also $21 per year cheaper than Amazon Prime, but doesn't have any of the

streaming media offerings or exclusive daily deals. At least not yet. The big question now for Walmart is

if it nailed the timing, since timing is everything when it comes to big product launches.

One argument in Walmart's favor is that Amazon's reputation has taken something of a beating

during the pandemic, in part due to delayed deliveries, according to separate surveys conducted by fortune

and recode. An argument against Walmart, though, is that it might experience some of those

same delivery delays. And, more broadly speaking, tens of millions of Americans are currently

unemployed, thus less able to spend money on extraneous consumer goods. Either way, Walmart views

Walmart Plus as one of its most meaningful initiatives in years and is sure to spark some sort of

response from Amazon. Maybe pricing, maybe perks, maybe both. As for other retailers, they're just

caught in the middle, as two of America's ten most valuable

companies continue to clash. In 15 seconds, we'll go deeper with Janie Whiteside, Walmart's

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