Amazon's New Prime Pantry Breaks Down Barriers To Drive Sales
By Hannah Ash, contributing writer
In the race to craft seamless home delivery of groceries, Amazon has rolled out another new initiative geared toward making the company stand out as a true e-commerce retailer.
Prime Pantry, launched on Wednesday, aims to capture more sales on heavy items that consumers normally would buy closer to home instead of paying costly shipping fees. With Prime Pantry, consumers can order up to 45 pounds of select non-perishable items to be delivered to their homes for a flat fee of $6.
According to Amazon, items available through Pantry include "popular soft drinks and bottled water, a new range of paper and laundry products in popular pack sizes, single boxes of breakfast cereal, potato chips, convenience-sized personal care products, and more." The service is available exclusively to Prime members (the annual membership fee for Prime is $99) and is a way to offer Amazon’s convenience and deals without forcing customers to buy items in bulk. The service is set up so that as Prime Pantry shoppers select items they can view their virtual shipment box filling, showing customers just how much room is left in their box before going over the 45 lb limit.
Amazon appears set on defining itself as a grocery and shipping leader today as the past several months have been full of expansion efforts. In December 2013, Amazon patented what it calls “Anticipatory Shipping” or the mechanics of partially fulfilling shipments before orders are completed. For Amazon, 2014 means expanding its home grocery delivery service (AmazonFresh) into 20 more urban markets, including some outside of the United States. This month, Amazon introduced “Dash” to select customers; Dash is a new tool that allows consumers to easily scan products and order them by pointing a device at a barcode. As Amazon continues to pioneer new features that enhance the shopping experience and offer customers greater convenience, others are following suit. Last week, Target significantly expanded its subscription shopping service while AmazonFresh rival Instacart rushes to capture the home delivery market in more cities.