US – The e-commerce giant, Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) is about to open a drive-through grocery store at Sunnyvale California. The drive-through grocery store will allow customers to order online and schedule a pick up at a designated facility and then collect them at a pre-arranged time. Thus, Amazon is imposing an additional threat to the grocery industry.
Amazon.com brings grocery stores
Amazon.com is the world’s biggest online retailer and it operates a subsidiary, AmazonFresh that provides the ‘free same day delivery’ service for grocery products over $35 in the US. Amazon.com has also started a self-service parcel delivery service called AmazonLocker in September, 2011 in the US and UK.
In the past few days, several rumours have spread regarding the opening of physical grocery store by Amazon where people can purchase the items in-store, but Amazon has denied the same. A real estate developer in the city of Sunnyvale has submitted plans for a new 11,600 square foot building and grocery pick up. The said building will be served as a warehouse with eight-stall car pickup area according to the submitted plans. Although, there is no name of ‘Amazon’ in the plan; but real estate sources have confirmed that Amazon.com will be the likely tenants for the said place.
According to the sources, customers can collect their online pre-ordered grocery and related items from their chosen 15 minutes to two hours pickup window. They can arrive on foot, bicycle or car.
Recently, Amazon.com has released its second quarter results and became the largest US retailer by market capitalisation and overtook Walmart. Sales from the Amazon’s biggest market, US again, proved to be high due to the very high demand and helped Amazon in making a record revenue of $23.19 billion in the second quarter.
Also, due to the restrictive regulation in the US, Amazon officials are in touch with the UK officials for getting the permission to test their drone delivery service known as ‘Prime Air’ which will deliver the items to customers in 30 minutes or less.
