Walmart’s Savings Catcher is supposed to do the job of price-matching other retailers for you! They’re advertising it as a shop-and-get-money-back solution so you don’t have to do the work of ad matching. You’ll shop, then enter a code from your receipt online to see if you qualify for money back:
- Here’s how easy it is: Enter the receipt number and date printed on the bottom of your store receipt.
- Savings Catcher scans circulars from top competitors in your area for advertised details that match the eligible items on your receipt.
- If Savings Catcher finds a lower advertised price, you get the difference.
You can sign up to use Savings Catcher on Walmart’s site. Then, you can access the Savings Catcher either over the web or via Walmart’s app.
More details from the site:
If Savings Catcher finds an advertised price that is lower than what you paid for the same exact item at Walmart, you’ll get back the difference on a Walmart Rewards eGift Card. You can submit up to 7 receipts per week to Savings Catcher.
You have the option to accumulate your Rewards Dollars and build your balance in Savings Catcher or transfer it onto a Walmart Rewards eGift Card whenever and as often as you choose. If you haven’t redeemed your Rewards Dollars at the end of the calendar year, Walmart will automatically transfer them onto a Walmart Rewards eGift Card and notify you.
What happens if I use coupons? No problem, you can still use Savings Catcher. If you use a coupon, Savings Catcher will compare the original Walmart price of the item, before the coupon was applied, to other stores’ advertised prices for the same item. For example: You bought cookies at Walmart. The shelf price was $3 and you used a coupon for $0.25, so you paid $2.75. If Savings Catcher finds that a competitor advertised those same cookies for $2.00, Savings Catcher will still credit you $1.00, even though you paid only $2.75 at Walmart.
Savings Catcher applies to many items sold at Walmart stores. This includes:
Most groceries such as cereal, rice and most fruits and vegetables except for: store brand items, deli, bakery and weighed items like meat.
Consumable items such as paper towels, bleach and trash bags.
Health and beauty items such as shampoo and makeup.
Select general merchandise items.Savings Catcher does not currently apply to:
Store brands, deli, bakery and weighed items like meat.
General merchandise items, (including, but not limited to, electronics, media and gaming, toys, sporting goods, housewares, small appliances, home décor, bedding, books and magazines, apparel and shoes, jewelry, furniture, office supplies and seasonal products).
Non-branded items.
Tobacco, firearms, gasoline, tires, prescription drugs, optical and photo products and services, or products that require a service agreement such as wireless, automotive or financial products.With Savings Catcher, you can earn a maximum of $599.99 Reward Dollars per calendar year.
Sign up to use Savings Catcher on Walmart’s site.
wanttosavemoney says
I am not sure even after reading this how this is supposed to work. They are not including store brand items, and what about items after lets say a CVS card?
SouthernReverie says
We saw how well their computer program worked when Walmart did the promotional thing where you could send them your receipt from any other store and they would compare the prices to tell you how much you could have saved if you had bought the same items at Walmart. Jill, you even did an article about how defective that program was. Considering all that, I don’t have much faith that this will work any better.
I have tried to price-match at Walmart numerous times, only to find that my local Walmart seems to make sure they do not stock the shelves with items that are on sale at a deep discount at Kay’s, a locally-owned grocery store. Kay’s puts medium eggs and skin-on, bone-in chicken breasts on sale on a regular basis, so the local Walmart doesn’t even carry those items anymore, although I have seen those items at other nearby Walmart stores (that are too far away to consider Kay’s a competitor).
Since Walmart goes to great lengths to avoid price-matching, I feel that Savings Catcher is just another gimmick, that, by the way, will allow them to analyze your purchases just like stores that offer loyalty cards. And you’ll probably only receive a few pennies for your trouble!
chucksjen says
I signed up for it months ago when I came across it by accident. I havent seen any info about it being released in the Illinois area so I tried it with my receipt last week. It processed it so I am assuming its already live.
ConE says
I am curious to see how this works at my Wal-Mart. We have little competition to match locally, but every little bit will help out. I’m going to try it out with some Folgers coffee the next time it is on sale somewhere else. See what happens.
wanttosavemoney says
If we choose are we still able to price adjust the same way we do it now? For some reason I don’t think I like this concept.
Resurrection Praiser says
Here in Illinois I hardly ever go to Walmart for groceries, and have never price matched. However, in Florida matching the BOGO specials is a BIG deal, and when we make a trip to the city we make sure we have ads with us and have saved a lot with this. However, we have a friend who manages a Walmart there, and she has told us how their store is losing money with this policy.
I’m thinking that this might be another way for Walmart to put an extra layer of work onto the consumer end. If people have to do something more than just say “price match” at the register, like having to come home and enter numbers in the computer, many will not do it. Then Walmart will save that money. Also, it keeps the money in the Walmart system if they don’t give you money off immediately. It’s kind of like the Menards rebate system. We pay the money up front, gather up rebate slips, and then wait weeks for the coupon to use only at Menards again.
I’m glad they haven’t cut it off altogether and will stay tuned to hear if it’s going to hit FL too.
pondering says
I diligently price match at Walmart, so I was eager to see if this program would find any more money back for me. Just received my email from Walmart saying I saved an additional $1.59, which will be given to me on Walmart gift card. Not much money, however I plan to do this every week after I shop there so it will add up. It only takes a minute to enter the code from my receipt, so I figure I don’t have much to lose (except the database info they’re receiving about me – but that’s another issue, and I don’t have anything to hide about what I’m buying).
Price matching there saves me so much money that I’m sure I’d exceed the $599 limit a year if I just relied upon this program, so I will definitely continue to price match at the register, then use this new program as a check to make sure any price matches I missed are credited to me.
DMoreno859 says
For those that are asking about not finding anywhere on the app for Walmart, all you need to do is hit the barcode picture in the search field and scan either the square digitized box on your receipt or the barcode at the bottom of the receipt. It should automatically put your receipt into the system.
There are some other things to know about the Savings Catcher and they are things they just updated on the 17th of July without notice. Main thing is, you used to only be able to scan 15 receipts per month, that has changed to 1 receipt a day essentially (7 a week) and read the FAQ’s on the Savings Catcher Web Site, there is a lot more verbage about Arbitration and Walmart cutting your privileges of at their sole discretion whenever or whereever they feel like it. None of this was there before. It was a straight, simple easy thing to use.
Savings Catcher was first introduced many months ago in I think 4-6 Market Areas, there was no talk about how much you could “catch” up to, it’s just recent that they added that you can only save up to $599.99 in a calendar year, which is total ridiculousness. My savings catcher (which I started the same week it started never even mentioned a limit and last week, when I found that the savings catcher wasn’t even letting me redeem ecards, even after emails of stating how much it caught and was owed me, it wasn’t letting me redeem) I even called the hotline to find out why the REDEEM NOW button wasn’t highlighted anymore, even they couldn’t tell me about the limit on the account (the CSR was just kinda a information collector and stated they were having problems with the system and sounded like it could be an issue that was already known, needless to say, it got me no where. After several emails of “Please send us the TC number and date that you are referring to” emails, I just got mad. After two attempts to call, two inquires on the web site, with information that you are asking for included in the email, what???? How can you offer something like this, and I mean Price Matching and give the difference to you in an e-card, but you can only have up to $599.99 while the rest of the country can earn their money back one you reached a limit? Only reason why I find this very insulting as customer of Walmart on an, and I am not kidding, everyday shopper, is that I spend at least $180,000 a year at Walmart Grocery and why should I be excluded from the savings if they are just going to pay people out anyway somewhere else? As a customer, the lack of any serious involvement from ARKANSAS hotline to Savings Catcher or email, I find that this is something they seriously need to look at. I was totally for this program when it started, but having to do your own footwork to find out why a company website isn’t giving you what you were told, they can’t give you the difference after the sale, then maybe it’s time to have their computer systems update nightly or weekly or however it can be done, and give you the savings that’s advertised instantly and foregoing the e-card to be redeemed. That way there, there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Walmart has the lowest prices, end of story. Walmart, if you can invest time and money into a program like this, it should be available to anyone at anytime anywhere there is a store and there should be no limits put on how much you save. If this was available at the registers, then and there, you wouldn’t have to consider any kind of tax forms to send out (which by the way, when did I give you my social security number to send that out anyway?), it would be all internal, a business practice that you and you alone would have to claim on any tax form. Not to mention, when you do reach your limit, like I have, and no one can give a straight answer and have to do your own reading on the now, NEW website, that there is limits, it’s a big o’l kick in the teeth, because now….I feel unappreciated especially since I was there at the beginning of the program way back a few months and just now finding out there are limits, feel me?
It’s like saying “hey you’ve reached a coupon limit this year, you can’t cut coupons for another year” so says Walmart. Seriously? Get your act together and put those heads together and focus on things that will retain customers, not distance them. No no overweight kid in class, you can’t have ice cream today because everyone else is, you just had too much already this year.
https://savingscatcher.walmart.com/terms?mobile=true Incase you want to read the now LONG legal info.