Walmart Stores will be giving Amazon.com, Inc. a taste of its own medicine this Summer. Walmart will begin testing an unlimited free shipping subscription service that will cost half the price of Amazon Prime. The Bentonville, Arkansas based retailer has made a concerted effort to remain relevant as consumer shopping trends continue to shift towards a preference for online shopping. In 2012, they launched Walmart-To-Go, a same-day delivery service, in select markets. With the new program, which has yet to receive an official name, Walmart customers can receive free expedited shipping on every order. The cost for the annual subscription will be $50. Its pledge to deliver products in three days or less means that consumers can still get items faster with Amazon Prime’s two day shipping, but Prime’s $99 per year subscription fee might be more than customers want to spend to get items one day earlier.

Walmart’s subscription service is less expensive, but Amazon Prime is packed with added value features. Prime members get free access to a massive library of movies, television shows, and music with the Prime Instant Video and Prime Music streaming services. They also get free unlimited cloud storage with Prime Photos. Up to this point, it’s been an all or nothing proposition. Consumers may very well prefer to drop those premium services to save money. Walmart’s new program will finally allow them to do that. Should Walmart decide to offer additional features, it certainly has the assets to do so. Its acquisition of Vudu, a streaming video service, in 2010, would allow it to compete with Prime Video. They introduced a companion device called the Vudu Spark earlier this year. It’s an HDMI dongle that allows any high definition television to stream Vudu movies. Walmart could very easily include it with its subscription, if it felt the need to enhance its bare bones offering.

photo credit: Walmart’s Grease Fuel Truck via photopin (license)