Amazon Delivers in Two Minutes or Less!
Not exactly delivery, but Amazon is rolling out pick up points in the United States. Shoppers will be able to order products online and pick them up in a matter of minutes.
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Of course, this is only a select few products, and the current list of instant pick up points will be located at five college campuses, such as the University of California at Berkeley.
The service works only from the Amazon mobile app, and all product searches and payment are done via the app.
Amazon does plan to roll out these instant pick up points in urban areas and already mentioned one future location will be Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood.
DIRECT THREAT TO VENDING MACHINE OPERATORS
Quietly this is a direct threat to vending machine operators. The company is likely going to feature typical items found in vending machines, and the use of the Amazon App will make it simple to purchase these items in our ever growing cashless society.
Unlike vending machine operators, Amazon will not just offer drinks and food, but also popular items such as phone chargers and probably earbuds.
The company also stated that prices for vending items might be lower than if purchased online, but since no product mix was announced, there is no pricing information available.
Of course, this would only make sense since there is no actual shipping involved with a purchase from an Amazon Instant Pickup point.
WHY EVEN USE THE AMAZON APP?
The company did state they considered a total automation of the system (in short a vending machine) but decided to go with the app integration.
However, the most likely reason they are using the app is that this just another way to keep shoppers in the ecosystem. It is also possible they may integrate standard Delivery Locker locations with Instant Pick Up locations.
It is pretty clear that all of this is just about having shoppers think about Amazon whenever they think about buying anything. Mind melt shoppers into the Amazon collective.
And back to a serious note, it could be a test bed for Whole Foods instant Pickup!
What do you think? Would you use them and if given the opportunity to offer marketplace products in these lockers, would you tie up inventory to do so? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Richard Meldner
Richard is co-founder of eSeller365. He has over 17 years of experience on eBay which includes tens of thousands of sales to buyers in over 100 countries and even has experience with eBay’s VeRO program enforcing intellectual property rights for a former employer. And for about two years Richard sold products on Amazon using Amazon FBA in the US.
To “relax” from the daily business grind, for a few weekends a year, he also works for IMSA as a professional race official.