An Amazon delivery worker pulls a delivery cart full of packages during their annual Prime Day promotion on June 21, 2021 in New York City.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Amazon on Monday said it is adding a handful of retail brands to its same-day delivery offering for Prime members.
To start, Amazon is offering same-day delivery in 10 cities across the US from apparel brands Pacson, Diesel and Superdry, as well as vitamins retailer GNC. They cost less than $25, Amazon said.
Some participating retailers also give shoppers the option to order items online and pick them up in-store.
CNBC previously reported that Amazon was testing a similar model with its Flex delivery drivers, in which they would bring packages from mall-based retailers and drop them off at customers’ doors.
Amazon continues to invest heavily to make one day and, in some regions, same day, default delivery to its Prime members. The company has expanded the number of eligible products a day, and now has “thousands” of items that can be delivered in a matter of hours.
Consumers are increasingly demanding faster and faster delivery speeds from online retailers, as evidenced by the explosion of ultrafast grocery platforms last year. Retailers have also jumped on the trend by partnering with on-demand delivery providers like DoorDash, Uber’s Postmates, Instacart, UPS Roadie, as well as Target’s Shipment. The partnership means that consumers can often get a new T-shirt or dress in just a few hours.
With the new partnership, retailers will fulfill orders from the inventory in their stores and a flex delivery driver will receive them from the retailer. Doing so allows Amazon to get online purchases to the doorstep of shoppers even faster.
Amazon isn’t the only company looking beyond warehouses to fulfill e-commerce orders. Walmart and Target are touting their large brick-and-mortar footprints to accelerate deliveries with hopes of expanding their e-commerce market share.
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