amazonfreshAmazon Fresh continues its expansion across the West Coast, announcing today that it is opening its grocery delivery service in San Diego. With the new service now available in San Diego, customers can pick among 500,000 products, from milk and cheese to shampoo and batteries.

Operated as a test in the Seattle area for five years, Amazon Fresh slowly began to expand beyond the Northwest last year with operations in San Francisco and LA.

With San Diego now in service, Amazon Fresh is operating in four of the key markets along the West Coast.

In a conference call last year with stock analysts, Amazon.com CFO Tom Szkutak noted that Fresh was designed as a pilot program.

“Certainly the economics have improved through invention on behalf of the team there, as well as operating efficiencies,” said Szkutak, adding at the time that it is a “challenge” to make the service run profitably.

Of course, Amazon.com already operates with very low margins, and it has shown a great appetite to invest for the long-term. In fact, Amazon Fresh is a perfect example of founder Jeff Bezos’ love of long-term thinking.

Even so, new entrants are emerging in the online grocery delivery market, including Instacart, which is led by former Amazon.com employee Apoorva Mehta.

Like in other markets, customers can start a 30-day free trial by setting up a Prime Fresh account, an upgraded tier of Amazon Prime. After that trial, the service costs $299 per year.

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