Amazon plans to retire its seven-year-old Prime Now same-day delivery program and integrate the service, including online grocery delivery and pickup, into its mainline website and mobile app.
Stephenie Landry, vice president of grocery at Seattle-based Amazon, announced the move in a blog post on Friday. She said that shifting Prime Now’s service to Amazon.com and the Amazon app will enhance the one-stop shopping experience.
“Prime Now has become a customer favorite, attracting millions of Prime members around the world with ultrafast delivery of everyday essentials, gifts, toys, high-quality groceries and more from Amazon and local stores. To make this experience even more seamless for customers, we are moving the experience from a separate Prime Now app onto the Amazon app and website so customers can shop all Amazon has to offer from one convenient location,” Landry explained in the posting. “Whether it’s two-hour delivery from Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market or one of our local stores like Bartell’s in Seattle, Morrisons in Leeds or Monoprix in Paris, Prime members will find what they need alongside the millions of items available on Amazon. Now that the Prime Now experience has a new home on Amazon, we will retire the Prime Now app and website worldwide by the end of this year.”
So far, Amazon has retired the Prime Now app and incorporated the service into the Amazon website and app in India, Japan and Singapore. The transition in the United States is slated to be completed later this year.
“In the U.S., we began making two-hour delivery from Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market available on Amazon in 2019. Globally, we’ll move our third-party partners and local stores to the Amazon shopping experience before the Prime Now app and website are retired later this year,” Landry said. “Feedback from customers who have shopped two-hour delivery on Amazon has been overwhelmingly positive, and it’s a natural next step to simplify the ultrafast delivery experience globally.”
Amazon launched Prime Now in December 2014 to provide Prime members one-hour delivery on tens of thousands of daily essential items — ranging from paper towels and shampoo to books, toys and batteries — through the Prime Now mobile app. The service was extended to groceries from Whole Foods, acquired by Amazon in August 2017, starting in February 2018 and steadily expanded to more of the chain’s stores over the next year or so, providing free two-hour delivery — and later store pickup — for orders of $35 or more.
Then in late October 2019, Amazon Fresh perishables delivery became a free service under the Prime customer benefits program. With the move, Amazon essentially made same-day, online grocery delivery a free service for Prime members placing orders of $35 or more. Amazon’s Prime Now and Prime Pantry programs already offered members free delivery for that order minimum.
With Prime Now’s integration into the Amazon website and app, consumers will be able to shop, track orders and contact service from one location. U.S. customers also will be able to shop Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh supermarkets via Amazon.com or the Amazon app. The more seamless shopping experience, Landry said, will enable customers to add items to orders as they’re being prepared, quickly access to favorite items based on past purchases, and view recommendations and items trending in the area. And in the U.S, customers will be able to add items from their Alexa shopping list to their Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods shopping cart.
“In 2014, I wrote a six-page document outlining a service that would allow customers to get last-minute items in about an hour,” Landry wrote in the blog. “In just 111 days, our team took the concept outlined in that six-page document and turned it into Prime Now, which became the foundation for Amazon’s ultrafast grocery and same-day delivery businesses.
“I was excited for Prime members to experience Prime Now back in 2014, and today I’m thrilled it is becoming an integrated part of the Amazon shopping experience,” she added.
