Same-day delivery is apparently not fast enough for some Amazon shoppers. The retail giant said on Tuesday adds new shipping options that will get products to front doors within a one- or three-hour window.
The company said in its announcement that the one-hour option is available in major US cities, while the three-hour option is now live in more than 2,000 locations. Amazon’s web page at amazon.com/getfast indicates whether those options are available to buyers for their location. More than 90,000 products will be available during those shipping windows, the company said.
For those who cannot access those services (including the author of this post, who lives between Austin and San Antonio in Texas), a message will appear: “3-hour delivery is not currently available. Check back later or purchase products with Same-Day delivery below.”
The pricing for express delivery options isn’t cheap: It’ll cost you $20 for one-hour delivery and $15 for three-hour delivery for those without an Amazon Prime account, or $10 and $5 for Prime customers.
Last year, the company started working quickly Amazon delivery options to over 4,000 locations.
In the podcast video Learn and Be Curious with Doug Herrington, hosted by Amazon’s CEO of global stores, Kandace Kapps, director of the company’s same-day strategy team, spoke in detail about the challenges of fast shipping. Kapps discussed changing consumer shopping habits over the past few years, with more people buying household essentials like toilet paper on Amazon.
He said Amazon can deliver more quickly by placing same-day delivery locations closer to customers in urban metro areas and by having products ready for shipment within 15 minutes, aided by warehouse robots.
“I think customers will continue to be pleasantly surprised at how quickly we can deliver to their door,” Kapps said.
Herrington said that fast shipping increases sales: “If we speed up service, the chances of someone buying a product from us go up.”
Other vendors, including Walmartthey have been adding same-day delivery options or exploring other ways to speed up shipping times to compete with Amazon.
Eliminating consumer moments of doubt
Part of Amazon’s strategy, which has involved building large locations, deploying thousands of trucks, dealing with other delivery services and investing in logistics software, is actually very simple: to be there when people need last-minute items or make impulsive purchases.
“It’s about removing the last minute point where you would reconsider a purchase,” said Stephanie Carls, a retail data expert at the coupons and promotional codes website RetailMeNot, a CNET website. “It’s changing the way you shop, not just how quickly you get things.”
Carls said Amazon’s fast delivery removes the time it takes for people to change their minds about a purchase.
“There used to be a gap between deciding to buy something and having it. That’s when you looked at the prices, reconsidered, or decided you didn’t need it after all,” he said. “This fills that gap.”
The retail expert said competitors, including Walmart and Target, have been speeding up delivery times in some markets. However, they don’t match Amazon’s scale or product range at those same speeds or levels.
“And that’s the first thing that makes everybody feel slow,” said Carls. “Amazon’s advantage is how interconnected its technology, inventory and delivery networks are, enabling this level of speed to multiply.”
