The company is introducing changes to its grocery offerings
August 9, 2023Image may be NSFW.
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Amazon Prime members are used to getting certain perks with their memberships. Now, Amazon is expanding its reach to offer one specific benefit to non-members: grocery shopping.
Bloomberg Newsfirst reported that Amazon will be rolling out Amazon Fresh deliveries to customers without Prime memberships in 12 cities nationwide: San Diego, Austin, Nashville, Sacramento, Charlotte, Portland (Oregon), Dallas, San Francisco, Phoenix, Richmond, Denver, and Boston.
Were always looking for more ways to make grocery shopping easy, fast, and affordable for all of our customers, and are excited to offer Amazon Fresh grocery delivery to customers without a Prime membership in a dozen U.S. cities, Claire Peters, worldwide vice president of Amazon Fresh, said in a statement.
Now even more Amazon customers can benefit from our high-quality grocery experience, with Prime members continuing to save on grocery delivery fees and through exclusive savings on hundreds of items in-store.
Paying extra for delivery
Prior to this expansion, Prime members were the only customers able to create orders with Amazon Fresh. On top of the yearly Prime membership fee, Fresh orders also came with a shipping charge if the delivery was under $150 as of January 2023.
However, non-Prime members can expect even higher shipping charges when they place orders with Amazon Fresh. Depending on how big the order is, non-Prime members will be charged between $7.95 and $13.95 just for delivery.
Comparatively, those with Prime memberships pay $3.95 to $9.95 for each Amazon Fresh delivery under $150.
Right now, non-Prime members will only be able to make orders with Amazon Fresh, though the options could expand to include Whole Foods in the future. Consumers can also expect to see Amazon Fresh rolled out to non-Prime members across the country as the year progresses.
More changes to ordering groceries
In addition to expanding to non-Prime members, Amazon also recently announced another change to how consumers order their groceries is in the works. With a goal of making Amazon the one place consumers go for their groceries, the company has plans to combine Amazon.com, Amazon Fresh, and Whole Foods.
Not every grocery item is available from all of the three entities, and rather than creating three separate orders across the different Amazon platforms, the company is working to integrate them into one shopping experience.
This means that shoppers looking for sugary treats that are unavailable at Whole Foods, or certain organic items that are unavailable on Amazon Fresh, will be able to check everything off their shopping list from one central online shopping cart.
While each item will be pulled from its respective location, shoppers will be able to have one checkout experience.
