Amazon adds Portland Whole Foods to its fast grocery delivery service
Photo / Peter Van Allen
Amazon announced today that it has launched delivery of natural and organic products from its Whole Foods Market in Portland through its Prime Now service, which promises to deliver grocery orders in as little as an hour and within a maximum of two hours.
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced today that it has launched delivery of natural and organic products from its Whole Foods Market in Portland through its Prime Now service, which promises to deliver grocery orders in as little as an hour and within a maximum of two hours.
Portland is one of 13 cities that Amazon and Whole Foods added today to the Prime Now service, according to a news release.
Amazon, which bought Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in August 2017, began delivering for the grocer through Prime Now in a few major cities last year. Today’s announcement about the 13 new cities being added brings the total to 88. Further expansion is expected throughout the year.
In addition to Portland, Amazon added the Prime Now grocery delivery service trom Whole Foods Market to Chattanooga and Knoxville, Tenn.; Destin and Tallahassee, Fla.; Greensboro and Wilmington, N.C.; Allentown, Pa.; Fort Collins, Colo.; Huntsville and Montgomery, Ala.; Jackson, Miss.; and Palm Desert, Calif.
“With our goal to cover as many Prime customers as possible with this new service in Portland, our coverage is expansive,” said Tanvi Patel, head of business development for Prime Now. “Today we’re excited to reach customers from Lisbon in the north, to Biddeford in the south, and to Buxton in the west to the Atlantic Ocean in the east.”
Delivery from Whole Foods Market is available daily from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. To learn more about grocery delivery from Prime Now, go online here. Customers can also find out if delivery is available in their area by saying, “Alexa, shop Whole Foods,” Amazon and Whole Foods said in their joint news release.
“Prime Now delivery continues to be a hit with our customers and we’re excited to introduce the service to even more Prime members across the country,” said Christina Minardi, Whole Foods Market Executive Vice President of Operations. “It’s just another way we’re making it even easier for more customers to enjoy Whole Foods Market’s healthy and organic food.”
How it works
According to Fortune, which reported on the Amazon-Whole Foods Prime Now delivery service when it launched in select cities in February 2018, customers who pay for the yearly Amazon Prime subscription will be able to purchase a range of items that their local Whole Foods store stocks via Amazon or Prime Now. The items will then be delivered, for free, within two hours. For $7.99, customers can get one-hour delivery on orders over $35.
Fortune reported that once a customer has placed an order, pickers — not necessarily Whole Foods employees — will manually collect the items from a nearby Whole Foods store and put them in “appropriate packaging.”
The orders will then be given to Amazon Flex delivery drivers—contract drivers who, similar to Uber, drive their own cars but use Amazon’s routing app to make deliveries. These drivers also deliver items for Amazon, Prime Now, Amazon Fresh, and Amazon Restaurants.
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments