In various cities in the USA, Amazon delivers food to it’s customers. Amazon delivers fresh food in the United Kingdom.
Their competitors will be local supermarkets. Not many British tech companies or franchisers deliver groceries. Amazon Fresh offers delivery to over 130,000 homes in the greater London area. These include fresh produce, fresh bakery, and fresh dairy items. This is Amazon Fresh’s first grocery delivery service outside the US. Customers must be British Amazon Prime customers. The service will cost them an additional seven pounds a month (that’s about $10 US). The groceries have to cost over 40 pounds (that’s roughly $58 US). Amazon wants the grocery delivered in one hour of the order. Amazon VP Ajah Kavan is cautiously optimistic. Kavan knows UK has one of the most discriminating customer bases in the world. The bar is extremely high. Local British brand produce will be delivered. So will major global brands like Nestle, Kellogg’s and Coca-Cola. Deliveries will be made in paper-bags and chill-boxes. United Kingdom supermarket chains face pressure from online shoppers and dissatisfied customers. Have you heard the jokes and complaints about British food? British discount stores are doing well. That spells more competition for UK supermarkets. Amazon Fresh delivery services are in two UK cities: London and Manchester. Could it spread?
The supermarket chains better hope not. Amazon Fresh is great for elderly and disabled customers, and their caretakers. These are individuals who could use this service. But what about the rest of the people? Let’s say I were in the UK. Let’s say I were offered Amazon Fresh service. I wouldn’t accept it. That’s because I would want my local supermarket to do well. Yes, there are dissatisfied customers out there. Competition from Amazon Fresh should light a fire under grocers to do better. I hope it does. Besides, London has some of the world’s worst traffic. Good luck getting there in an hour. Besides, don’t we give Amazon enough money already?