Amazon is now offering free, one-hour pickup of online grocery orders for Prime members at its Whole Foods stores across the U.S, expanding on a shopping trend that has taken off during the coronavirus pandemic.
The service is available for customers who spend $35 or more, the company said in its announcement Wednesday. Prime shoppers using the Amazon website or app select the Whole Foods tab and make their selections. They can then select a one-hour pickup window and place their order. When they’re on the way to the store they can check in using the app to alert the store and make the curbside wait shorter.
Prior to the pandemic, one-hour pickup was available at about 80 of Whole Foods’ 487 U.S. locations. COVID-19 accelerated online shopping, pickup and delivery services as more customers sought ways to spend less time inside grocery stores.
Amazon says more than 40% of Whole Foods pickup orders each month are from customers trying the service for the first time. And in citing data from Global Data Research, the tech giant says almost 68% of consumers say they will continue to use curbside pickup even when the pandemic has subsided.
It’s another plus for Prime members who pay $119 a year to gain access to a variety of Amazon services, including free shipping. Amazon already offers free, two-hour delivery on items from Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods.
The tech giant is experimenting with a variety of grocery-related retail options. It just opened its second high-tech Amazon Go Grocery location, this time in Redmond, Wash. The first cashierless store opened earlier this year in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. The company also just opened its first Amazon Fresh grocery store, in Woodland Hills, Calif., featuring a smart shopping cart.
Groceries are an estimated $678 billion U.S. market, and as they go increasingly digital, Amazon continues to invest heavily in both physical and online options three years after acquiring Whole Foods for nearly $14 billion in 2017.
The company saw online grocery sales triple year-over-year during the second quarter of this year as more customers get their groceries delivered versus going to a physical store during the pandemic.
