If walking between your car and the grocery store always seems like too much hassle whenever you visit, then Amazon is about to make your life a whole lot easier.
At least, it is if you happen to live in its home city of Seattle. The company that seems keen to have a finger in every pie ever made has just launched AmazonFresh Pickup in two locations (Ballard and SODO), giving Prime members “a fast and easy way to order groceries, pick them up, and be on your way in minutes.”
AmazonFresh Pickup lets you do your food shopping online — either at home or on the go — and then collect it when you drop by at a depot in your car. According the promo video above, all you do is select a pickup time when you hit the “buy” button and someone will be there to load up your car when you show up.
Amazon has been testing the service with employees over the last couple of months and it could be rolled out beyond Seattle if customer feedback is positive. Future launches are most likely to be in places where the AmazonFresh delivery service is already up and running, which include cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Boston.
Besides doing away with shipping costs, the new pickup service provides Amazon customers with another way of receiving grocery orders. In other words, AmazonFresh Pickup could be a hit with shoppers who dislike having to wait in for deliveries and instead prefer the idea of dropping by a depot to collect their items at a time of their choosing.
The service is free for $99-a-year Prime members, while AmazonFresh members who pay the monthly $15 fee can enjoy a few additional benefits, such as having grocery orders ready in as little as 15 minutes. Non-Fresh members, on the other hand, will have to wait at least two hours before going to collect their order.