Amazon expands same-day delivery to six more cities

Last-minute shoppers rejoice: One year after introducing same-day delivery, Amazon is expanding the service to six more cities, bringing the total to 12.

• Prime members in Baltimore, Charlotte, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, and Tampa can now receive a selection of three million Amazon products within five hours.
• To facilitate same-day delivery, Amazon built new mini fulfillment centers closer to where customers are located.

Amazon is leaning into same-day to compete with the likes of Walmart and Target and their expansive store fleets, TechCrunch noted.

• “If they don’t keep innovating on behalf of the customer, they will lose customers to hungry competitors,” Andrea Leigh, VP of strategy and insights at Ideoclick, told Retail Brew.

Need for speed: Shoppers want their stuff, and they want it now: 36% of consumers chose same-day delivery from an online-only retailer, per a February Digital Commerce 360/Bizrate Insights survey.

But, but, but: Drivers are unhappy about the pressures that come with all those deliveries; one worker told Insider this week that “managing proper breaks is impossible.”

• An Amazon spokesperson told the publication it “support[s] drivers taking the time they need to take breaks.”

+1: One place Amazon is slowing down? Returning to the office—which has been postponed to 2022.—KM