Walmart's 10% staff discount just got expanded. Here's what's included
The discount, previously limited to fresh produce and general merchandise such as apparel, now extends to almost all food categories — including milk, meat, dry grocery, and seafood — in stores and online, effective immediately.
Walmart, the largest private employer in the United States, had previously extended its grocery discount during the holidays, but the perk will now be available year-round, the company said.
'We've heard your feedback that these savings make a real difference for you and your families,' Donna Morris, Walmart's chief people officer, wrote in the letter.
Morris said the extension of the discount card program, first introduced more than 50 years ago, was among the company's most requested benefits.
The company has also raised wages for U.S. hourly workers and launched a bonus program for about 700,000 front-line staff over the last couple of years to help retain workers.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the extension of the discount program.
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For Ulta, the exit should be of little consequence, even enhancing its reputation. As the saying goes, nobody wants to sit at the reject table. 'From Ulta's perspective, their reputation is only as good as the company you keep,' shared Stephen Hahn, chief reputation and strategy officer at corporate reputation management firm RepTrak. 'Reputation can transmute through association,' as he notes Target's reputation has fallen of late. 'It's highly likely that Target's recent reputational challenges would have been an important factor in Ulta's decision-making.' Target's Troubles Mount Target has experienced ten consecutive quarters of flat or declining sales, most recently reporting net sales fell 2.8% with a 3.8% drop in comparable sales in the first quarter 2025. Its comp sales were bolstered by 4.7% increase in online sales against a dramatic 5.7% decline in store sales. Target derives some 80% of sales in its nearly 2,000 stores. 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At the partnership signing, Ulta was bringing to Target a specialized assortment of prestige beauty brands that would contribute to Target's more upscale 'Tarzhay' image. But that image has become tarnished. Commenting on a recent family shopping trip to Target, GlobalData's managing director and retail analyst Neil Saunders said in a Linkedin post, 'What greeted us was grottiness: a messy, sad-looking store that was both hard and unpleasant to shop. It felt less like Tar-zhay and more like a tired, tatty thrift-store.' And he opined that similar 'grottiness' spilled over into the Ulta shop-in-shops. 'The Ulta areas in Target have become increasingly messy, they suffer from inadequate staffing, and are often cordoned off from the rest of the store by retractable belt barriers. Persistent low stock levels have further diminished the experience.' Losing Ulta's partnership, he believes, 'will be widely viewed as yet another stumble in Target's recent run of setbacks.' 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I think it was the view of a lot of people, but, um, when you look at the inflation data, yes, it was a little bit hot, but it was certainly not hot due to tariffs. Um, and so, when we look back at the past several months, sort of, uh, ex-tariffs, um, notwithstanding this month, it actually has been, um, a a slowing of, uh, inflation. You can put the the the year-over-year change up there, but but you know, if you look just at back at sort of where is sort of the rolling three-month average of inflation gone. So so zeroing in on more recent history, um, things had been coming down for a while and only backtracked a little bit this month. Uh, this, you know, for the data that came out this week. And then when we, you know, when we dig into it, the things that caused inflation were really not the things that, uh, that the Fed has said it was worried about, meaning it really wasn't stuff that was related to, uh, to tariffs. 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