Amazon Prime Now, a new one-hour delivery service promising paper towels, headphones, and 25,000 other small goods, launched Thursday for some residents of Manhattan.
According to The Washington Post — which is owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos — Prime members living near Amazon's new 34th Street hub can get their goods delivered right to their door in less than an hour for a $7.99 fee or in less than 2 hours for free.
The service is not yet available in all parts of Manhattan — like Greenwich Village — and requires a minimum order of $15.
Amazon said Prime Now works exclusively through its new mobile app, which will show customers their courier's progress on a GPS-powered map.
Prime Now will compete directly with other delivery services like Postmates, Instacart, and Deliv, as well as convenience stores like Duane Reade and CVS.
Same-day delivery has long been the holy grail of web retailers going all the way back to days of Webvan and Kozmo — casualties of the dotcom bust.
On the way to Prime Now, Amazon installed lockers inside places like coffee shops in cities around the U.S., and offered quick-turnaround pickup. With the lockers, however, customers still had to go to the merchandise instead of it coming to them.
In some cities Amazon has also made its grocery delivery service, Fresh, available for same-day deliveries.
"There are times when you can’t make it to the store and other times when you simply don’t want to go. There are so many reasons to skip the trip and now Prime members in Manhattan can get the items they need delivered in an hour or less," Dave Clark, Amazon’s senior vice president of worldwide operations,
said in a press release.
"We’ve long felt that Amazon Prime is the best deal in the history of shopping and now it has gotten even better. Prime members in Manhattan are going to love this service and we cannot wait to roll out Prime Now to additional cities in 2015."
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