Robin Calvo
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Walmart Mexico & Central America · E-commerce · 2025–2026

Walmart Pass: member base ×2.5 in one year

Walmart’s e-commerce membership was growing slowly. I scaled it by connecting it with audiences the company already had: the Walmart ecosystem, partnerships with platforms and banks, and content creators.

Role

Business Owner of the membership: acquisition, retention and partnerships.

Starting point

A mature product with a base that had taken years to build. Walmart’s first membership in Latin America.

Context

E-commerce platform migration and rebranding alongside the US, at the same time.

Key decision

Grow with $0 of own budget, on owned and partner audiences, protecting the core business P&L.

×2.5

member base in one year; building the initial base had taken several years

Base growth

33→55%

of e-commerce sales made by members, with ~20% of the customer base

Share of sales

8%

of new e-commerce customers came through the membership

Acquisition

×2.7→×4

monthly frequency of a member vs. a non-member, after expanding the membership to Marketplace

Frequency

The situation

Walmart Pass was a mature product, but its base had taken several years to build. I came from growing the Beneficios program and designing the omnichannel membership meant to unite Walmart’s services; that proximity is why I was assigned the membership.

The challenge was to grow fast with $0 of own budget, prioritizing the core business P&L, while the platform migrated and the brand was aligned with the US.

The strategy

The ideal customer was already inside the ecosystem or in a partner’s base. Instead of looking outside, I connected the membership with those audiences and made it part of habits that already existed.

LeverWhat I didEffect
Walmart ecosystemI positioned Walmart Pass as one of the main benefits of the national benefits program (25M+ registered users in 2024) and leveraged it in Bait, Walmart’s mobile carrier, with 15M+ customers.Access to the company’s largest bases at no media cost.
PartnershipsI activated partnerships with platforms and banks: co-marketing, journey integration and joint offers.With Edenred we kept customers’ average ticket and improved their lifetime value.
Content creatorsPartnerships with creators who influence specific niches.Small volume, but those customers spent ~50% more than those from other channels.
Free trial instead of couponIn digital marketing campaigns for new e-commerce customers, I replaced the $200 coupon with a free Walmart Pass trial.50% savings in acquisition incentives. The membership brought in 8% of the year’s new e-commerce customers, a figure that was not in the plan.
One HallwayI extended the membership from the grocery store to the full catalog.A member’s monthly frequency went from ×2.7 to ×4 vs. a non-member.

The ecosystem loop

The membership did not live alone: I designed it as a piece of a cycle that reinforces itself with every purchase.

  1. The customer buys at Bodega Aurrerá Salud.
  2. They earn free months of Walmart Pass.
  3. With Walmart Pass they get benefits in their health program.
  4. Those benefits give them more discounts to shop online, and the loop starts again.

Each turn generates more purchases and more reasons to stay in the membership.

Share of sales

Also, in this role

Benefits in the app

I turned physical benefits (McDonald’s, Starbucks) into QR codes inside the Walmart app.

Using the app became part of the habit and fed the e-commerce flywheel

What I would do differently

  • A CRM journey for lifetime value. Acquisition and scale were solved; lifetime value grew because of what the membership meant to the customer, not because of a journey designed for it.
  • More internal sponsorship. A loyalty program needs someone to represent it in the right rooms. I would give it that full-time focus instead of splitting it with other fronts.
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