Amazon To Deliver Grocery Items in Britain

The American E-Commerce company's plan to deliver groceries on the same-day to its Prime members has upset British grocery supermarkets.

According to the recent news, Amazon Fresh is about to introduce its unmatched “same day delivery service” in the UK. The move is likely to upset the operational flow of the British already stressed “Big Four” grocery supermarkets. The latest service is limited to its Prime members only and extended to close to 130,000 frozen and fresh grocery items range.

The primitive target market for Amazon Fresh is 69 postcodes across east and central London and the service will work in the following manner; all the orders made before 1 pm will be supplied by 11 pm. Also, its one time hour slot –guaranteeing a heap of fresh demands –will be hard to rival by already struggling competitors.  

The online retailer has been highly rumored to be considering a measure in the market for grocery items since it introduced its niche as well as bulk grocery unit around six years ago, but analysts had given a suggestion that the company would not be able to easily make fresh as well as frozen deliveries profitable due to lack of experience of the supermarkets in the region, along with the unavailability of large logistics. But the company has plans to strengthen its soon to be launched project.

The Seattle based company will collaborate with Morrisons to deliver the Bradford based supermarket chain’s own-branded products included but not limited to sausages or biscuits, which will indicate that it can contest with supermarket’s affordable white-label brands. Nevertheless, most of its goods will be branded items, like Yeo Valley yoghurts, Cornetto ice creams or Flora margarine, for which the online retailer has stated it will benchmark prices against Waitrose, Asda Morrisons, Tesco and Sainsbury’s.

The web retailer’s –already a household name –grocery delivery service is likely to commence delivery facility for close to 50 independent food retailers like London bakers Gail’s, Pizza Pilgrims Soho and Konditor & Cook, which will mean that orders placed before 8 am for artisan grocery orders can be supplied on the same day, whereas orders placed before 5pm the upcoming day.

The delivery services by Amazon Fresh will be made from a warehouse located in Bow, east London, by its Amazon Logistics, which relies upon 90 independent supply partners who already supply the web retailer’s items. Consequently, Amazon Fresh branded vans will not be running on the roads.

The grocery delivery service will be offered to Prime memberships- who are already paying a yearly $114.25 fee (£79) –for an extra $10.11 (£6.99) monthly fee entitling them to unlimited deliveries per month above $57.85 (£40) for free. Jeff Bezos’ company has never disclosed its Prime members in Britain, but stated it had increased its international members by 51% in 2015 after heavily investing in its TV streaming service and digital marketplaces.