Prime Now Steps Up its Grocery Delivery Operations

October 15, 2024         By: Steven Anderson

Delivered groceries is a fantastic concept, one so wonderful that it seems to be catching on in grocery stores all over the planet. Having your food brought to your door was a great idea when it was just pizza on a Friday night, so why would it be any less wonderful for your week’s supply of groceries? That’s a point not lost on Amazon, which recently used its new Whole Foods connection to bring Prime Now grocery delivery to a whole array of new places.

Prime Now will now reach new locations in San Francisco, as well as newcomer locations like Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Louisville, Annapolis, and both North and Central New Jersey. Grocery pickup, meanwhile, will arrive in Dayton, Louisville and Omaha, with plans for further expansion set to arrive beyond that.

This latest expansion is just part of the picture for Prime Now’s delivery and pickup operations. Back in September, the service hit several new areas, including places like Orlando, Ann Arbor, Milwaukee, and Tulsa. July saw it hit several new areas of New York City and an additional three cities in Florida.

It’s a good time for Amazon to expand its operations, too; several competitors are getting into the fray and pursuing the delivered grocery market. We’ve seen quite a few such firms get in, as noted previously, but specific names include Publix, Walmart’s Jet service, and some regional players like Lucky’s Market, Sprouts Farmers Market, and midwestern mainstay Meijer.

Basically, the same appeal that makes ordering prepared food for delivery so awesome is starting to catch on at the grocery store level. While Amazon’s push has focused more on urban centers, it’s likely that smaller towns will have to start bringing it into play as well. If Amazon’s delivery, or really any delivery service, ever caught on, it would be a hit, especially in villages surrounding small towns where a grocery run might well be 10-15 minutes’ drive one way.

The problem is that Amazon wouldn’t be too likely to make that expansion, as it would likely end up like Google Fiber. The second word got out, every grocery store in town would start offering it to fend off Amazon. That’s a good problem to have, though, if you’re into the thought of grocery delivery.