Amazon just announced that they will be selling groceries to Prime members for cheap with cheap shipping. Hooray! Now I’ll get even more stuff from Amazon!
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](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/amazon-launches-grocery-service-prime-members)
Anyone else think this rocks and is likely another internet retailing game-changer?
If they don’t raise their prices on items like Dennison’s can Chili they are going to lose a lot of money … Rural area people could save some money though this I will agree with, but not big city people with access to box stores like Sam’s Club and Costco.
I wish Sam’s Club would follow suit …
can you imagine a drone dropping 45lbs of canned chili on your door step, ouch?
Amazon apparently also has a program that if you schedule a regular monthly order of the same item you get a 5% discount. If you schedule a monthly order of five or more items, you get a 15% discount.
Sounds like a game-changer for people’s waistlines. While I am sure some people will use this to order brown rice and seltzer water, the reality is that this is a great way for Americans to get more bottles of Coke and boxes of cookies with zero effort, and without the hassle of having to skirt around the produce aisle.
Repost
Not just that…they have a beta website up and running - http://www.amazonsupply.com
Office supplies; materials management items; medical consumables; hardware items (think Grainger and Harbor Freight)…
To give an example consider sugar. Pantry has a 5 pound bag for $1.76 ($3.52 for 10 pounds)–which is roughly comparable to supermarkets. Otherwise the cheapest I find is 10 pounds for $10.35 Prime or $9.83 Subscribe and Save.
I have used an online grocery delivery service in my area called Peapod with more than satisfactory results. The first time I ordered, I included a green pepper and a cucumber, to test the quality of the produce. It was good stuff, and it was delivered. America! F Yeah!
Companies like Peapod are only in metropolitan areas. Pantry will provide an option for rural America.
It’s a beautiful thing. 
Red! It’s the new Blue!
Yeah man cuz you can’t buy cookies and Coke anywhere but the grocery store. Not like they are at places like bodegas, vending machines, country stores or gas stations.
We’re lazy and hungry, we don’t have time to wait 2 days for Coke and pay $6 extra when there’s a Seven Eleven literally down the block.
I’m pretty happy with FreshDirect, but I may give this a try. God knows I can’t get boxes of cookies anywhere else in this town.
Alternatively, it can give folks in rural areas access to speciality items, ethnic ingredients and organic products. Looking through it, they have fish sauce, nori, chipotles in adobo sauce etc. Items like that are not always available in small markets.
I think I may have been too harsh. It’s a neat service and I do 90% of my grocery shopping online, so I am all for this.
I am just slightly saddened that a service that is entirely packaged foods can be considered “groceries.” I am frustrated at a new way that it’s become easier to eat junk food rather than produce. Yeah, you can load the cart up with junk at Safeway. But at least there is the option to grab a carrot there.
In my dream world, there would be fruit and veggie stands on every corner, and store runs for the other junk would be rare.
Happily, looking through the offerings, there are bags of dried beans, quinoa, couscous, baking staples, paper goods, tons of organic versions of common pantry items, high quality canned tomatoes, whole grain cereals etc etc.
Sure there’s pop tarts and spaghetti o’s, but there are a lot perfectly common dry goods that folks need to buy as groceries. I’d see this as complementing regular shopping, not replacing it entirely. Who knows? It might encourage someone to try something different that an adventurous item or a healthier version.
I might be interested if they get some generics. Three buck might be okay for a box of Kellogg’s cornflakes, but not really for just a box of cornflakes.
Amazon and other on-line retailers have gained some attention for the utterly inhuman medieval treatment of their warehouse workers who collect the items you’ve ordered from the shelves.
One article among many similar:
I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave by Mac McClelland in Mother Jones, March/April 2012.
(Article also contains links to earlier articles on the topic.)
zomg. Somebody complaining about a shitty job in Mother Jones. Stop the presses.
I don’t know. I can get a week’s worth of produce (and ice cream) in one short trip and maybe one reusable bag or two. Buying the bulky nonperishable stuff online might save me time and frustration at the store. It might also be nice for people who rely on public transportation or walking between the store and home.