Expansion of Same-Day Grocery Deliveries Announced by Amazon

Tuesday, June 18, 2019 - 10:14 by Mike Price

Over the past three years the US e-commerce giant Amazon has been working with UK supermarket chain Morrisons to provide same-day delivery of food products in a small number of places around the country. Now it has been confirmed that a wider rollout of this scheme is under way, according to BBC News.

Customers in cities including Sheffield, Newcastle and Glasgow will soon be able to order online and have their groceries delivered direct to their door in just a few hours thanks to this growing partnership.

Consumers in London, Birmingham and a handful of other major urban centres have had similar opportunities since 2016, but this new announcement of a wider rollout is an affirmation of the success of the same-day grocery delivery scheme.

Of course, Amazon and Morrisons are not the only retailers offering speedy delivery for groceries: Waitrose has been testing the waters with its own equivalent service in the capital, and it is planning to make this available elsewhere later in the year.

Whether this is really the game-changing solution that consumers are dying to take advantage of or simply an appealing but not essential service remains to be seen. There are certainly costs associated with offering same-day delivery, and for those consumers who put value for money above all else, it may not be a price worth paying.

Whatever the case, Amazon certainly has the resources to throw at the UK’s online grocery market as it attempts to muscle in on the action alongside established players. Meanwhile, so long as consumers are being given adequate choice and are getting competitive pricing from the biggest firms in the market, they can make their own decisions as to whether same-day grocery delivery makes practical and financial sense.