Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Amazon Gets Fresh With New Jersey As Its Grocery Delivery Service Expands

Residents of Northern New Jersey are the newest to benefit from Amazon's local grocery delivery service. Known as AmazonFresh (one word), Amazon seems to have expanded into several new ZIP codes, including those for Hoboken, Weekawken, Jersey City, Newark, Paramus, Edison, Montclair, and New Brunswick, all of which are located in the northern part of New Jersey.

It was a quiet expansion -- Amazon didn't make a big splash with a press release or any other kind of announcement. Nevertheless, checks of accompanying ZIP codes show that AmazonFresh is now available in the above mentioned locations, though it hasn't expanded all the way up north to places like Montvale and Sparta.

image: http://hothardware.com/ContentImages/NewsItem/33626/content/AmazonFresh.jpg
AmazonFresh
Image Source: Flickr (Atomic Taco)

According to Recode, some of the food being delivered to parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan comes from a big warehouse in Avenel, New Jersey. That being the case, it makes sense that AmazonFresh now includes Northern New Jersey. At the same time, you can take this as a sign that AmazonFresh is moving beyond the experimental stage and is something Amazon sees as a viable revenue stream as it grows and expands to more areas.

The grocery industry is $600 billion large. Local delivery only sees a small portion of that, but the potential to make big money is there, and that's what Amazon is after. Competition will come from existing delivery services, as well as a growing number of startups. Where Amazon may have an edge is in name recognition. It can also toy with various promotions to drum up interest in AmazonFresh.

At present, AmazonFresh customers must subscribe to Amazon Prime, a $99 annual subscription service that offers a number of benefits, including free 2-day shipping on millions of qualifying items. Up through June, Prime customers can trial AmazonFresh for no fee on orders exceeding $50. After June, AmazonFresh and Prime will combine for a $299 membership called Prime Fresh.

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