By: Nick Gambino
Amazon Fresh has existed as an add-on service for Prime members for a mere $14.99 to get your groceries delivered from Whole Foods and other participants, but if you’re already paying for your Prime membership, it feels like a lot. Amazon has just announced that they’ll do away with charging Prime members for Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods delivery.
Prime members already enjoy a number of services with their monthly or annual subscription plan, so this is just another perk to keep you around or to bring new subscribers in.
“Prime members love the convenience of free grocery delivery on Amazon, which is why we’ve made Amazon Fresh a free benefit of Prime, saving customers $14.99 per month,” Stephenie Landry, Vice President of Grocery Delivery said in a blog post. “Grocery delivery is one of the fastest-growing businesses at Amazon, and we think this will be one of the most-loved Prime benefits.
Free delivery will give competitor, Walmart, a run for its money as the retail giant is still charging $98 a year to deliver your groceries. Now, there are some catches, as there often are.
If you’re an existing subscriber to Amazon Fresh, you’ll benefit from free delivery immediately, but if you are planning to subscribe newly, you’ll have to sign up and wait for Amazon to invite you. I guess they have a limited capacity they know they can handle.
You have to meet a specific price threshold before you can get your groceries delivered for free. You can’t, for example, order eggs and some butter and expect someone to show up at your door without paying for the convenience. The majority of the more than 2,000 regions where Amazon Fresh is available to have a $35 minimum while New York City sets the threshold at $50.
They’ve done more than just drop the price to zero and add more cities to sweeten the pot. They’ve also worked to increase delivery speeds.
“In addition to eliminating the $14.99/month fee, we’ve also improved delivery speed with one and two-hour options in most Amazon Fresh cities, and we’ll continue expanding ultrafast speeds to all cities where the service is available,” they stated further in their blog post.
For the price of three cups of coffee a month, you can enjoy music, books, killer TV and movies, free grocery delivery, discounts at Whole Foods and I’m sure plenty of other benefits I’m not even thinking about. It’s hard to beat that and I don’t see anyone really trying.
