

Photo: iStock / miromiro
Amazon plans to offer deliveries of hundreds of household items — including some fresh groceries and over-the-counter medicines — within 30 minutes, in a test program beginning in Philadelphia and its home city of Seattle.
The e-commerce company will use “specialized smaller facilities” for the deliveries, Amazon said in a statement on December 1. The fee will start at $13.99, and be discounted to $3.99 for Prime members.
Amazon has a long history of experimenting with quick delivery from specialized urban facilities stocked with inventory similar to the products sold by convenience stores and pharmacies.
The company launched a quick, same-day delivery service called Prime Now in 2014, offering one-hour delivery for a fee and free two-hour delivery of select items. The service required customers to order from a separate app or website, which were discontinued four years ago. Customers in some locations can still request fast delivery through the primary website and app.
Other Seattle experiments, including order pickup kiosks that resembled drive-in burger joints, have also been shuttered.
Retailers like Walmart and Target invite shoppers to place orders online and pick them up at stores near their homes, a speedy service Amazon has had difficulty matching.
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