Earlier this year, Walmart announced the launch of Walmart+, a membership program that the retail giant is using to compete with Amazon Prime. The program offers such features as unlimited free delivery, fuel discounts, and Scan & Go app, and more. The membership costs $98 per year.

At the time of its launch, Walmart+ established a minimum of $35 on online orders from Walmart.com. Now, the company has announced that starting this Friday, the minimum will be lifted. However, deliveries from Walmart stores, of groceries and other items, will retain the $35 minimum. 

“It feels like a life hack is needed now more than ever and Walmart+ is here to help,” Janey Whiteside, chief customer officer of Walmart, said in a statement.

“No other membership allows customers across the country to get everything from gingerbread cookies and eggnog to holiday decorations and toys delivered for free as soon as the same day. Walmart+ is designed to make life easier—giving customers an option to not have to sacrifice on cost or convenience.”

The company also announced that Sam’s Club fuel stations will now be eligible for the program’s fuel savings. 

“Customers have been clear—they want this benefit. Being able to toss an item into your cart, regardless the total, and checkout right away lets them knock little things off their to do list in no time,”  Whiteside said in the press release.

Walmart had been rumored for much of the year to be launching a Prime competitor, and reportedly planned to launch it the spring before delaying their plans due to the pandemic.

Walmart+ costs less than Amazon Prime per year, although the prices offered per month are closer together. Per CNBC, Walmart has not released any figures about how many customers have signed up for the Walmart+ service. Amazon, meanwhile, has over 126 million Prime subscribers in the United States. 

Even before the launch of Walmart+, Walmart reportedly put pressure on top TV manufacturer Vizio to remove the Amazon Prime Video button from the remotes on its TVs. There have been rumors that Walmart, like Amazon, may eventually launch a content component along with Walmart+, although there has been no announcement of that yet.

In early October, The Wall Street Journal reported that Walmart was in talks with Comcast to launch TV sets that would run Comcast’s software, with a third party manufacturing the sets themselves but basing their interface on Comcast’s X1 interface or something like that. Comcast was reported a couple of months earlier to be in talks with TV manufacturers about putting their software on televisions. There has not as of yet been anything official announced about either set of negotiations. 

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Reuters