Amazon can make big changes in its food sector, which currently includes two services: AmazonFresh and Prime Now.
AmazonFresh is the company’s oldest food delivery service, a traditional online option with a $ 15 membership fee per month and reserved delivery times.
Prime Now, on the other hand, is Amazon two hours delivery offer that comes with Prime for free. In addition to a limited selection of food, it also offers a small selection of products, such as echo equipment and seasonal items.
The changes on Amazon now give an idea of how these two services can be meaningfully linked together.
In November, Amazon stopped supplying fresh produce to parts of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and California and has not explained why.
An Amazon spokesman said in a statement to Business Insider, “We’ve made changes to our service area and suspended delivery to certain postcodes. AmazonFresh continues to service its customers in the United States (Seattle, New York, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Miami, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco and more) and internationally (London, Tokyo, Berlin, and Munich) “.
At the same time, Amazon is opening Prime Now centers in major cities. Service is now available in more than 30 cities and communities, and food choices have increased dramatically, encompassing Whole Foods’ entire product range.
Prime Now offers a selection of more than 1,000 Whole Foods products and more than 5,500 foods in Manhattan. In contrast, AmazonFresh offers about 13,500 groceries for delivery to Manhattan.
Amazon’s chief executive, responsible for Prime Now, VP Stephenie Landry, has also been named the head of AmazonFresh.
“If you look around this facility, you’ll see a lot of everyday items: food and supplies,” Landry told Recode. “AmazonFresh sells the same types of products, but is a much greater variety, and both have many synergies and it makes sense to think about them together.”
Landy also took over the reins of Amazon Restaurants, a ready-to-serve delivery program in partnership with local restaurants hosted on the same Amazon Prime Now sites.
This has led to speculation that Prime Now and AmazonFresh could join together. A survey conducted by Morgan Stanley among the members of the first group shows that Prime Now food orders have increased. The bank wrote in a note to investors that 48% of people using Prime Now are asking for edible products more than they ask for more traditional e-Commerce offerings.
The survey was conducted prior to the completion of the Whole Foods acquisition and, before the products are placed on Amazon, it is possible that the adoption has continued to increase.
“I think we’ll have plenty of opportunities to bring food to our customers, but behind the scenes, it makes sense to drive the highest levels of efficiency,” she said.
It’s tempting to consider Prime Now as the Amazonian vehicle that will dominate the supermarket, an area where they already had problems. By combining the environmental footprint and selecting Whole Foods with Prime Now delivery logistics, which provides a free two-hour delivery, this could be an unbeatable combination.
