‘They’re letting us know’: Woman sees Old El Paso taco shells on sale at Walmart. Then she takes a closer look

Rollbacks are an integral part of Walmart's branding. The chain often touts products that have had their prices dropped, calling shoppers' attentions to the deals they could be taking advantage of in store.

However, a TikToker's recent visit to the chain delineates a rollback that was more of a roll forward. Seibreanna (@blessedcurls) highlighted what looks like a signage gaffe in a recent TikTok she uploaded to her account.

The video, which accrued over 133,000 views as of Saturday, shows a shelf display of Old El Paso taco shells. It begins with a recording of the shells' previous pricing at $2.18. However, the new, updated "rollback" price is advertised as $3.

After highlighting this disparity, Seibreanna then pans the lens over to another woman looking up at the food items. Her mouth is open wide in what seems like shock at the 82-cent upcharge.

Sales volume

Walmart is the world's largest brick-and-mortar retailer by a far margin. In fact, according to these listed annual revenues, the globe's second biggest retailer, Amazon, rakes in less than half the revenue of the popular chain.

However, the profit margins exhibited by both of these companies are vastly disparate. While Walmart averages a net margin of 2.5%, Amazon's is more than double, accomplishing an impressive 5.5%. Meaning the Jeff Bezos launched company's operations yield more average profit per transaction than the Bentonville-based business.

That's because the vast majority of Amazon's operations are rooted in online shopping. Furthermore, the business's most profitable sector is actually its web hosting service, AWS. You've probably come across that acronym while copying and pasting URLs online. If it contains those three subsequent letters, then that most likely means that the content is hosted on an Amazon server. In fact, around 30% of all the web lives on Amazon's servers.

Profit via volume sales and aggressive pricing strategies have always been the core of Walmart's business model. The company's founder, Sam Walton, said as much in his autobiography. This is probably why its "rollbacks" nomenclature was such a core part of the brand's marketing.

Push to online

In recent years, it appears that Walmart has been making greater pushes for its customers to shop online. One customer detailed their frustrations at the $10 cost difference of a video game. If they had the item same-day delivered to their home, it would've been cheaper than getting it in-store.

While they ultimately were able to get Walmart to honor the delivery price in store, the patron was still confused. They couldn't fathom why it would've been cheaper to have the game brought to them by a Walmart employee. And in a snowstorm, nonetheless. Several users who replied to his video stated that this was due to Walmart's aggressive online shopping strategy.

Grocery Dive writes that since Q1 2024, Walmart's online shopping activity has increased by 50% in a single year. This jump in altered shopping behavior could be attributed to other initiatives launched by the retailer. Its Walmart+ monthly subscription is akin to Amazon in functionality and perks. Folks can receive same-day delivery or expedited shipping as part of their membership without incurring extra fees. Furthermore, they also gain access to complimentary content streaming via Paramount+.

Pricing woes

However, numerous guests of the chain have commented on the lack of value they've been seeing at Walmart stores. And one TikToker the Daily Dot reported on, believes it has led to an overstock of items folks aren't interested in.

In a social media post, they perused a Walmart location following a Black Friday sale. While doing so, they commented on the markdowns of these sale event leftovers as not being particularly enticing. Numerous other TikTok users agreed with their sentiment, remarking that the sales prices seemed closer to what they would normally expect to pay for such items. In some cases, they thought that "rollback" discounts were still much too expensive for particular products.

@blessedcurlss 😂😂 #walmart#lowprice#cheap#deals#fail @Mommatok @Walmart ♬ original sound - Seibreanna🩵🪽

TikTokers who replied specifically to Seibreanna's post believe the signage error was a Freudian slip of sorts. Like this one commenter who penned, "That’s good. They’re letting us know. They’re jacking up the prices."

Another said they've resorted to charity for sustenance as groceries have become prohibitively expensive: "This is why I've only been getting from food banks."

One person thought it was bizarre for Walmart to keep the old price of taco shells up on the shelf. "Since when did they start announcing price increases," they asked.

However, someone else replied that there has actually been a decrease in the cost of these shells: "Those were $5-$7 everywhere for awhile. $3 ain’t [expletive.]"

The Daily Dot has reached out to Old El Paso and Walmart via email and Seibreanna via TikTok comment for further information.

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The post ‘They’re letting us know’: Woman sees Old El Paso taco shells on sale at Walmart. Then she takes a closer look appeared first on The Daily Dot.

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