As someone who lives in Seattle, let me tell you about the service (and Ill even compare it to safe ways delivery service!) You schedule a time, and pick out your groceries. You can attended or non-attended deliveries (Id advise attended), and you can basically order anything from the local area and its reasonably priced. You tip the delivery guy (usually like 5$), and they come to your house and deliver. The review of it is that the produce is hit or miss (most of the time a very big hit, and its usually very good), and most of the stuff is as advertised. The prices are very comparable to stores in the local area, and if you dont have to pay for the delivery fee, can even beat them. In comparison to Safeway's service, it blows it out of the water. My safeway experience has been plagued with bad produce, and out of stock items, with amazon this is never a problem. Most of the same, Amazon can deliver everything the next day, but sometimes it can take 2 days. Its VERY reliable in terms of times that are set (if I say I want between 7-8 in the morning, the dropoff guy is always here during that time.) Overall, I enjoy using it for getting fresh produce delivered to my apartment with little to no hassle. I also have an amazon credit card, and it gives me 3x points on my order (which is better rewards than most rewards card) so that is an added bonus. Im excited if the rest of the country can get the same thing. As someone who moved from Ohio, its a service that I never knew how badly I wanted till I used it.
As a seattle resident who lived here a year ago and moved back again. I have a few things to add to this ...
1. Amazon Fresh prices one year ago were pretty high, they have driven costs down on everything except produce.
2. I live close to a City Target and have been avoiding Amazon Fresh because I thought the target was cheaper. Yesterday I took my $100 grocery bill and recreated it on Amazon Fresh, and excluding produce, it was $89.00. I was shocked to see the prices were cheaper for most things.
3. The delivery is free for $100 purchases, so you can't use it like regular amazon (or amazon prime).
4. The delivery times range from 5 am in the morning to late in the evening.
5. The packaging is often reuse able, plastic containers or clothe-bags and so you can leave outside and the delivery folks will pickup the old packaging, this is much more sustainable than regular amazon cardboard packaging.
6. Living in a city, it is easier and cheaper to buy in bulk of Amazon Fresh, because they prefer selling in larger quantities. Some items have 2 or 4 quantity minimums. If you don't have a car this is fantastic.
After having a baby, I started using Amazon Fresh heavily. 5 am deliveries are awesome, and the costs are < PCC or Whole Foods, and you occasionally get some pretty interesting stuff. It's not perfect, but it has replaced pretty much most of our produce shopping with the exception of specific "ethnic" items.
Another Seattle user: When housebound with an injury, Amazon Fresh was great.
The UI wasn't as good as a supermarket shelf, and Amazon didn't always give unit prices ($/lb) in consistent units across the board. I don't think they let me sort cereal by unit cost either.
At budget pricing, it didn't seem to compete with Safeway. The minimum orders needed for free delivery also tended to price out a single grad student. Re-checking prices recently when ordering for two, it seemed like it was kind of a wash.
It's worth checking out. If it works for you, it can be great.
The real win for Amazon is the upsell. If you're ordering groceries, you can also order electronics with nigh instantaneous delivery for free. It's powerfully addictive (so powerful, in fact, that I noticed and quit).
Amazon's grocery service is a lifesaver when you're too busy to shop. That said, it's not ready to supplant PCC or Whole Foods for the high end consumer: the organic selections suck, and what they do have is frequently out of stock. Some items can't be delivered in the morning, only the afternoon. Solve those problems, and add a service to create grocery lists from recipies, and you have a winner.
