Amazon takes further aim at the grocery market with expanded 30-minute delivery

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Amazon takes further aim at the grocery market with expanded 30-minute delivery Published Fri, May 15 202611:18 AM EDTPaulina Likos@paulina_likos Now arriving: an Amazon order at your doorstep in the time it takes to watch a "Cheers" rerun. The e-commerce giant has expanded the reach of its ultra-fast service delivery service Amazon Now, which brings thousands of grocery, household essentials and other items tailored for local markets to customers in about 30 minutes or less. The service is now live in cities including Atlanta, the Dallas Fort-Worth area, Philadelphia, and Seattle. It plans to expand to dozens more including Austin, Houston, Phoenix, and Denver, reaching tens of millions of customers by the end of the year. Amazon Now caters to items that "customers need urgently," according to the company, including fresh produce like vegetables, eggs, and dairy, as well as daily personal care, and electronics. The service carries a $3.99 fee for Prime members, or $13.99 for non-members, plus additional fees for orders under $15. Amazon Prime costs $14.99 per month, or $139 annually. To make 30-minute delivery feasible, Amazon uses smaller fulfillment centers strategically located close to where customers live. The expansion builds on Amazon's efforts to reduce delivery times and increase convenience for shoppers, particularly for commonly purchased grocery items — all with the goal of making a Prime membership indispensable and reinforcing the "flywheel" that investors love. In mid-March, Amazon announced one- and three-hour delivery in certain U.S. areas for over 90,000 products including everyday essentials and items typically found in a local supercenter. These delivery options are currently more widely available than 30-minute Amazon Now. The one-hour option is accessible in hundreds of cities and towns; the three-hour service covers over 2,000 locales. In August of last year, Amazon announced a broad rollout of same-day grocery delivery . On the physical grocery side, Amazon this year pulled the plug on its Amazon Fresh and Go stores and instead is leaning into the Whole Foods banner. Amazon also keeps layering additional services on top of its already massive logistics network. Just last week, Amazon launched a new business called Amazon Supply Chain Services that opens up its fulfillment network, including freight, warehousing and delivery to third-party businesses. The market has warmed to Amazon in recent weeks. The stock is up over 30% since its Iran wartime bottom on March 27, far ahead of the S & P 500's roughly 17% advance in the same period. Shares have rallied about 14% year to date, compared with the S & P 500's 8.5% run. That makes Amazon the second-best performing megacap tech stock in 2026 behind Google parent Alphabet, which is up 27%. AMZN 1Y mountain Amazon's stock performance over the past year. The faster delivery announcements, in particular, underscore Amazon's push to go directly after the spontaneous shopping trips that tend to be driven by quick, in-person stops at retailers like CVS , Walgreens, Walmart , and Target , in addition to quick food delivery services like Instacart , DoorDash and Uber . The 30-minute Amazon Now offering is especially a shot at the likes of Instacart, DoorDash and Uber. Amazon is going beyond competing on price or selection. For many online shoppers, delivery speed is the name of the game, and Amazon keeps making advancements in that arena. Over the years, Amazon has built one of the best logistics networks in the world, complete with robotics, regional fulfillment centers and last-mile infrastructure for speed. It's wisely leaning into that advantage to drive more frequent orders and become the go-to place for more kinds of purchases. That makes a Prime membership harder and harder to cancel. To be sure, Amazon has competition on same-day capabilities. Walmart remains the "early leader given its speed, value selection and controlled end-to-end experience," Wells Fargo analysts argued in a note Tuesday. Walmart provides same-day delivery, driven by its Walmart+ membership program. Its network of roughly 4,600 U.S. stores act as fulfillment centers for some online orders. In the holiday quarter, about a third of orders fulfilled from a Walmart store were delivered in less than three hours, CFO John David Rainey said in February. One feather in Amazon's cap in the rapid-delivery game is its 24/7 delivery capabilities, Wells Fargo said. However, Amazon's current assortment "falls well short" of Walmart and other omni-channel grocers including Kroger and Albertsons , the analysts argued, given their extensive networks of physical stores. Kroger has about 2,700 and Albertsons is at roughly 2,200. For its part, Amazon offers delivery through Whole Foods but its