Amazon customers can now browse and buy fresh grocery items “alongside everything else” on Amazon.co.uk and the Amazon app – with perishables and non-food able to be purchased within a single basket and delivered on the same day.
Previously, fresh food could only be bought and delivered as part of a separate basket via the Amazon Grocery section of the site and app.
“We’re focused on making grocery shopping easier and faster for customers, with low prices on millions of items,” said John Boumphrey, UK country manager of Amazon.
“Customers can now add fresh groceries to their regular Amazon orders in a single basket and have everything delivered the same day. Whether it’s fresh ingredients with a new cookbook, or milk and tea bags with a new kettle, you can place an order in the morning and have it delivered by the time you get home.”
The option is being made available to customers in parts of Central and East London initially, with plans to expand to additional postcodes and more areas across the country in the coming months.
Those in eligible postcodes will find perishable groceries in regular search results and product listings – as well as through the Grocery and Same-Day tabs on the website and app.
Amazon Fresh’s full range isn’t all available to be shopped in this way, but the initial selection of a few thousand fresh SKUs is expected to expand in coming months. The bringing together of fresh and non-food means it is potentially easier for Prime members to reach the minimum £20 order-size threshold needed to benefit from free same-day delivery. For customers without a Prime membership, the service is available for a £5.99 delivery fee regardless of basket size.
The addition of fresh grocery delivery to Amazon’s same-day network is “enabled by continued investment in fulfilment technology and logistics infrastructure that includes placing products closer to customers for faster delivery,” Amazon said.
The company described the move as “the next step in Amazon’s grocery journey, giving customers another convenient way to shop, depending on what they need and when they need it”.
Despite the announcement late last year that Amazon was to close all 19 of its Amazon Fresh physical convenience stores, the company is focused on growing its share of UK grocery. The launch “builds on Amazon’s continued investment in UK grocery,” it said.
In January, it launched a rapid grocery service – Amazon Now – offering thousands of food products and household essentials for delivery in 30 minutes or less, the fastest Amazon has offered for order delivery in the UK.
It has expanding partnerships with Morrisons, Co-op, Iceland and Gopuff, and is doubling the number of UK Whole Foods Market stores.
Earlier this year it slashed thousands of prices on Amazon Fresh, lowering prices on 4,315 items, or 45% of the products available on Amazon Fresh, with an average discount of 16%. Analysis of Assosia data by The Grocer show that it is now as cheap or cheaper than Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s for nearly two-thirds of the 2,313 products stocked by Amazon and at least one full-range supermarket.
Amazon said in the UK, groceries and household essentials represented “one in three items ordered daily” on Amazon.co.uk and is growing nearly twice as fast as other areas of the business.
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