Amazon has big plans for Prime Now, including ditching the need for a dedicated app

By Kris Wouk April 4, 2016

amazon free shipping minimum packages — Julie Clopper/Shutterstock

Amazon’s Prime Now same-day delivery service may have been around for a little over a year now, but it hasn’t yet taken the world by storm. A big part of the reason for this is that availability is limited, but another part is that customers need to go out of their way to use the service, compared to the company’s bread-and-butter business, its website.

Prime Now may take a while before it’s widely available, but it’s about to get much easier for average customers to use. The service will be available via the Amazon website — at least in areas where it is currently available — starting in May, according to a report from Bloomberg. That may not sound like a big deal for a company that built its core business around a website, but until now, Prime Now required users to download a separate mobile app.

Related Videos

Amazon is taking the launch of Prime Now on the Web very seriously, it seems. Rather than quietly enabling the feature, the company is looking to sell advertising space to major brands around the launch. These aren’t coming cheap either, with the top-of-the-line “Launch Hero Package” costing $500,000 for two weeks’ placement.

Since much of Prime Now seems centered on impulse buys, it makes sense that Amazon would launch on mobile first, but moving to the website proper was an inevitability. Shopping on mobile devices is on the rise and expected to hit near $100 billion in the U.S. this year, but research firm EMarketer says this only represents one quarter of online commerce in the country.

Amazon initially launched Prime Now in a relatively small area of New York in December 2014, and has gradually expanded since. Now the service is available in around 20 cities in the U.S., as well as London. Its offerings have also evolved in some cities, including food delivery from local restaurants.

In order to use Prime Now at all, customers need to subscribe to Amazon Prime, which costs $100 per year. Delivery within a two-hour window is free for members, while one-hour delivery costs an extra $8.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Computing

Is Microsoft’s new PC cleaner just an Edge ad in disguise?

The new PC Manager app on a Windows 11 desktop

Microsoft really wants you to use the Edge browser, so much so that the company has tied it to PC optimization in a new settings app. Microsoft PC Manager does what you could always do by opening the settings menu, but the new app also prompts you to set Edge as your default browser.

Screenshots of the new app were posted on Twitter by @ALumia_Italia and appears to show what is a public beta of the app. The app performs basic maintenance functions. You can check startup apps, check for updates, run disk cleanup, and other minor optimizations.

Computing

New phishing method looks just like the real thing, but it steals your passwords

A MacBook with Google Chrome loaded.

Thanks to a new phishing method, hackers could steal all sorts of personal information by simply mimicking real login forms in Application Mode. This is a feature that's available in all Chromium-based browsers, which includes Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Brave.

Using Application Mode allows threat actors to spread highly believable-looking local login forms that look like desktop applications. In reality, all inputs are sent to a malicious attacker.

Computing

This new Windows 11 feature will help you protect your passwords

A man sits, using a laptop running the Windows 11 operating system.

The new Windows 11 22H2 update was just released, bringing an interesting security feature. Dubbed "Enhanced Phishing Protection," this feature was made to help users protect their Windows passwords a little bit better.

Enhanced Phishing Protection will warn users whenever they enter their Windows password in places where it's not needed. Here's how it works.