This has positive synergies with Amazon's long-term plans: near-instant availability.
One of Amazon's largest costs right now is shipping, and their volume is approaching the scale where running their own last-mile transportation, in some cities, starts to make a lot of sense.
These are also, coincidentally, the cities that are dense enough to support a delivery grocery business.
So basically:
- Freedom from the tyranny of UPS, FedEx, and shitty last-mile delivery companies like OnTrac.
- Lower cost and higher efficiency of a shipping infrastructure that is tailor-made for their product variety and delivery timing.
- A convenient way to build said infrastructure in a way that does not involve Amazon going all-in with their core business, and instead allows them to slowly attach the main Amazon.com experience as the delivery infrastructure grows.
- Domination of yet another vertical.
I'm excited. I used Amazon Fresh in Seattle when I lived there, and nowadays in NYC even the vaunted FreshDirect simply does not compare. New Yorkers think they've seen the end-all-be-all of grocery deliveries, but they ain't seen squat yet.
One of Amazon's largest costs right now is shipping, and their volume is approaching the scale where running their own last-mile transportation, in some cities, starts to make a lot of sense.
These are also, coincidentally, the cities that are dense enough to support a delivery grocery business.
So basically:
- Freedom from the tyranny of UPS, FedEx, and shitty last-mile delivery companies like OnTrac.
- Lower cost and higher efficiency of a shipping infrastructure that is tailor-made for their product variety and delivery timing.
- A convenient way to build said infrastructure in a way that does not involve Amazon going all-in with their core business, and instead allows them to slowly attach the main Amazon.com experience as the delivery infrastructure grows.
- Domination of yet another vertical.
I'm excited. I used Amazon Fresh in Seattle when I lived there, and nowadays in NYC even the vaunted FreshDirect simply does not compare. New Yorkers think they've seen the end-all-be-all of grocery deliveries, but they ain't seen squat yet.