Amazon is discontinuing Prime Now – but the fast delivery options remain
Prime Now – soon to be history in Berlin too. (Photo: Amazon)
Amazon has announced that it will be crushing its Prime Now delivery service as an independent brand and platform. However, the e-commerce group is not giving up the fast delivery options.
Amazon launched its Prime Now service in the USA in 2014, and the fast delivery option has also been available in Germany – for a limited offer – since 2016. In Berlin and the Munich area, Amazon Prime customers can have a few thousand items sent to them from areas such as fresh food, beverages, electronics, drugstores or books within an hour or in a freely chosen two-hour window. That is changing now – at least in part.
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Fast delivery options now directly from Amazon
Like Amazon notifies, should Prime Now app and the associated website will be closed worldwide by the end of 2021. In India, Singapore and Japan, Amazon has already discontinued Prime Now in its current form. But that doesn’t mean the end of the fast delivery options. Instead, the e-commerce group integrates this into its standard Amazon app or the normal platform. Depending on the location and products – such as fresh deliveries – Amazon users can then continue to book a delivery within one or two hours.
According to Amazon, the group wants to make the shopping experience that has been used to date from Prime Now more seamless. Prime Now has become a favorite with customers and attracts millions of Prime subscribers with ultra-fast delivery of various products. In the USA, where Amazon has already integrated the fast delivery options from Fresh and Whole Foods Market into the platform, customer feedback has been overwhelming, writes Amazon Vice President Stephenie Landry, who is responsible for the grocery store. Now they want to offer this worldwide.
Was there insufficient demand for Prime Now?
However, it is doubtful whether Amazon is actually taking this step solely because of the user experience. There are no concrete figures on the use of the Prime Now service, but there was a small glimpse into the business two years ago when Rossmann ended his collaboration with Prime Now. At that time Rossmann explained the Süddeutsche Zeitungthat “this special type of ultra-fast delivery after ordering is not requested by our customers”.
