Amazon expands 30-minute delivery to more U.S. cities

Need something from Amazon, like, now? If you live in parts of Seattle, Philadelphia, Atlanta, or Dallas-Fort Worth, you can now order certain things online and have them at your door in 30 minutes or less.

The company has been piloting Amazon Now in a couple of cities for the last few months, and announced Tuesday that it’s expanding it to dozens more.

The service is not yet available where Brad Jashinsky lives in Southern California, but he can imagine himself using it.

“I have a five-month-old right now. If we run out of diapers, or she needs cold medicine or something, yes, I could go drive to the store, but it's worth that few extra dollar fee,” he said.

Jashinsky is a director analyst at Gartner in retail and travel & hospitality. He said right now, if he needs something fast, he’ll order it from Walmart and he’s able to get it, if not quite in 30 minutes maybe within an hour or so.

“For certain items, consumers really value convenience. And this now gives Amazon a way to compete,” he said.

Amazon has long been the company pushing delivery forward, Jashinsky said. The brand is almost synonymous with convenience.

Bruce Winder, retail analyst at Bruce Winder Retail, said consumers’ expectations are constantly shifting.

“Convenience used to be a day or two, and then it was same day, and then it was a few hours, and now it's 30 minutes,” he said.

But Winder said actually delivering things someone just ordered online in 30 minutes is difficult and complex.

“You need to have a combination of local infrastructure. You need to have algorithms and the right AI setup so you can anticipate what folks need before they even need it. You just need to be able to turn things incredibly quick,” he said.

Most companies that have super-fast delivery, including Amazon, only offer it on a small number of high-demand products.

But Marc Wulfraat, president and founder of MWPVL International, a supply chain and logistics consulting firm, said it’s still tough to make it work logistically and financially.

“There was a bunch of companies like Buyk and Gorillas and these guys that promised 15-minute delivery in New York City with grocery merchandise, and they all went belly up and failed,” he said.

Because, he said, the cost structure was just too high.