9 ms·

Amazon permanently shuts down Prime Pantry

157 points by 80mph 6y ago

thrill 6y ago
But I hadn't got my box filled up yet.
AmVess 6y ago
It was a strange offering from Amazon. They had a very limited selection coupled with poorly boxed items meant that I only tried it twice before giving up on it. All the items in the second and last order I received were thrown in a single box with no effort to protect the contents from each other. I get the feeling this was a common occurrence, because the interest in it amongst my friends vanished almost as quickly as it started.
- ev1 6y ago
  I made the mistake of ordering both crisps and bottled juice in one Pantry order. I have no idea why they don't algorithmically structure what to pack together, but I don't think I've ever had a full order arrive in non-broken state from pantry.
BugsJustFindMe 6y ago
A better headline would have been "Amazon merges Prime Pantry into regular .com site". > "As part of our commitment to delivering the best possible customer experience, we have decided to transfer Amazon Pantry selection to the main Amazon.com store so customers can get everyday household products faster, without an extra subscription or purchase requirement"
- judge2020 6y ago
  Source article seems to be https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-07/amazon-shutters-prime-pantry-an-early-online-grocery-initiative https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-07/amazon-sh...
- gumby 6y ago
  A better headline would have been "Amazon merges Prime Pantry > into regular .com site". Not exactly. The products for sale are still for sale on the site, yes. But the "pantry" product including a volume-based flat rate shipping. You entered products until you were told that your box was filled and then they shipped it to you flat rate. I used to fill it with kitty litter, dog food, cans of stuff and other heavy products. Now kitty litter is covered by prime free shipping so why pay extra for pantry?
  - cloudwalking 6y ago
    FWIW I used to order kitty litter on Prime. Free shipping and all that. Turns out they hugely marked up the retail price for the free shipping. I’ve since found it on Walmart’s website for about 40% cheaper. Free shipping if I order 5 at a time.
    - ardy42 6y ago
      > FWIW I used to order kitty litter on Prime. Free shipping and all that. Turns out they hugely marked up the retail price for the free shipping. I’ve since found it on Walmart’s website for about 40% cheaper. Free shipping if I order 5 at a time. This is really common on Amazon, even for things that aren't heavy/large. Amazon used to be a place that gave you some of the best prices on things, but that hasn't been true for a long time.
      - ehsankia 6y ago
        I especially noticed this when I accidentally browsed logged out once. The same thing that was $X + $Y shipping became $(X + Y) + 0 Prime shipping...
        hansvm 6y ago
        Awhile ago I used to sell a lot of consumer grade electronics on eBay, and one of the first things I noticed was that people were generally willing to pay more to have free shipping. $X+$Y shipping could easily turn into ($X+$Y+20%) + free shipping, and people would do it to themselves -- I'd start iPhones bidding at $0.99, and without fail I'd drum up a ton more business than I ever could with substantially lower fixed prices and accurate shipping costs.
sigjuice 6y ago
Good riddance. Most people just want to buy mundane household items without having to solve knapsack problems.
- ketamine__ 6y ago
  That's a great way to put it.
- bombcar 6y ago
  The only time I ordered from it I tried (and did pretty well) to fill the box with the cheapest most dense things I could find.
- wkearney99 6y ago
  SPOT ON. Of the few times I used it I hated it enough to just go use a regular grocery and some 3rd party shopper service.
- jonas21 6y ago
  I think it was a product from a different era. When Prime Pantry launched, Amazon hadn't acquired Whole Foods, and they didn't have a story for last-mile delivery yet. So they had to ship your order from a warehouse, and the only way to do that profitably on low-margin grocery items was to batch them up into a large order in a box of uniform dimensions. The fact that they no longer need to do this speaks to how far Amazon's logistics have come over the last 7 years.
  - ubertoop 6y ago
    Among the growing list of documentaries I would love to watch, but have yet to find, Amazon's logistlics solutions is one at the top. Would be very cool to get a deep look at how all the various types of orders are handled.
    - bananaheel 6y ago
      This is more of a capturing of current state than a full blown documentary. I still learned a lot about amazon’s logistics. https://youtube.com/watch?v=2qanMpnYsjk https://youtube.com/watch?v=2qanMpnYsjk
cheriot 6y ago
It was an odd market niche. Only dry packaged groceries so I couldn't go "grocery shopping", but also could not be combined with my Fresh order. The limited selection and lack of a price benefit meant it wasn't worth the hassle of another order.
- kube-system 6y ago
  There were a lot of internet grocery stores that sold nonperishables in the days before Instacart. It was useful for people in rural locations that weren’t very mobile... and still is for the people who don’t live where fresh grocery delivery is available.
  - mjevans 6y ago
    It might be better for society to help the orderly shutdown and consolidation of those areas towards communities dense enough to have a functional local economy. This would integrate well with new New Deal style programs where people are helped to migrate to jobs that enrich society and those working; and possibly recapture the former community areas as nature reserves or other non-housing lands.
    - RhodesianHunter 6y ago
      Or just let them live their lives where they want to live them?
    - TylerE 6y ago
      That'll last all of about 5 minutes, until some granny goes on the local TV news talking about how she's been forced out of the home she's lived in for the last 70 years.
    - kube-system 6y ago
      Many people naturally do this. The "I can't wait to grow up and get out of here" trope is universal to basically every small town in America. Many people with the means to do so also like to leave the city to move to small town America. There's really nothing wrong with either of these life experiences. People's needs are varied, both by person, and by the stage of their life. Living in an economic hotspot is more important to some people than it is to others.
bootlooped 6y ago
I had said many times Amazon had too many ways to order groceries: 1. Amazon.com 2. Amazon Prime Pantry 3. Amazon Fresh 4. Whole Foods via Amazon Prime Now 5. Amazon items via Amazon Prime Now* *I never figured out what exactly this was. Was it just Amazon.com listing reproduced in the Prime Now app? Was it Amazon Fresh and/or Prime Pantry items? Was it some other set of items?
- stonogo 6y ago
  Amazon Prime Now is basically direct courier delivery from the closest warehouse to your house. the app only presented things that were readily available in your area.
  - tshaddox 6y ago
    My understanding was that it was distinct inventory at a distinct warehouse optimized for same-day fulfillment. At least in SF years ago, they had cold items like eggs and ice cream (before the Whole Foods merger).
  - dawnerd 6y ago
    But whats weird is sometimes inventory would be different depending on if you were on the primenow website, or browsing amazon.com for same day or fresh. Sometimes prices were even different - like items would be on sale from primenow but full price on amazon.com. I very much miss prime now restaurants though. It was the best, no extra fees or anything other than a tip.
  - shrimp_emoji 6y ago
    Warehouse? I thought it was a Whole Foods only thing.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      Prime Now was around before the WF acquisition.
- DennisP 6y ago
baby 6y ago
I never understood what this product was to be honest.
egonschiele 6y ago
The move makes sense. In theory Prime Pantry is a good idea, since it reduces the cost of shipping that we're all paying as consumers on "free" shipping items. But the logistics of finding enough stuff to fill the box went against the idea of Amazon, which was think of a thing and order it immediately. I'm not sure if others were organized enough to order their paper towels/soap/toilet paper etc at the same time, but I certainly wasn't.
rvn1045 6y ago
This was just another experiment for Amazon. Shutting it down just means it didn't work out for whatever reason but they'll probably try a similar concept again with a few twists. There are so many 'businesses' under Amazon and many of them compete with each other. Often times this doesn't make sense to the end consumer but these are all just experiments being run to see what kinds of businesses might work.
- jrochkind1 6y ago
  Uh.. I think the similar concepts are Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods delivery.
sjg007 6y ago
Best part was things sold by Amazon were typically cheaper on Amazon vs pantry.
zxcvbn4038 6y ago
No loss - Prime Fresh has all the stuff that Prime Pantry had without that whole fill the box or pay a fee concept that was such a pain to work around. Though I have to admit I’m a bit disenchanted at the moment because I’ve had the same prime fresh basket open for almost two months now and all the baked goods I want are perpetually either out of stock or available one day further out then I can schedule. No problems with meat, cheese, or dairy but bakery goods are like catching unicorns.
tomc1985 6y ago
Prime Pantry was great... if all you care about is processed food Every time I tried to use it I couldn't find enough stuff to fill the box with. The bulky stuff (like canned sodas) were more expensive than costco, and I can only eat so many boxes of Cheez-its and Belvita bars
rezbull 6y ago
Be careful with the website posted. Nod32 reported one of the scripts as a trojan https://64bitss.club/www.google-analytics.com/subscriptioninsider.com.js https://64bitss.club/www.google-analytics.com/subscriptionin... Pretty sure this is spam.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nsandell123 6y ago
> products, beverages, breakfast items and other household products in bulk for a $5 per month fee Is this separate from Amazon Prime? > Prime Pantry launched in 2014 and, similar to Amazon Fresh, Was Amazon Fresh the precursor to Prime Pantry? >In an email to Bloomberg, an Amazon spokesperson explained the company’s rationale for discontinuing Prime Pantry, Why is this author parroting a Bloomberg article? Hasn't bloomberg already reported on this? Is it just me or is Amazon bloated with so many deals and 15% off here 10 % off there? It seems annoying.
- tingletech 6y ago
  add on to prime, fresh and panty seemed unrelated (dry goods vs fresh food), Bloomberg article has a paywall
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
chovybizzass 6y ago
I was an early adopter of pantry, I used it twice and both times they were out of most of the things I ordered.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
zwaps 6y ago
I think it’s good because I don’t even get the distinction of all these services. Around here, we have Amazon, Amazon Pantry, Amazon Now and Amazon Fresh and they all sell more or less the same things. I mean I know there must be a difference but it sure isn’t obvious to me.

157 points by 80mph 6y ago

But I hadn't got my box filled up yet.

It was a strange offering from Amazon. They had a very limited selection coupled with poorly boxed items meant that I only tried it twice before giving up on it. All the items in the second and last order I received were thrown in a single box with no effort to protect the contents from each other. I get the feeling this was a common occurrence, because the interest in it amongst my friends vanished almost as quickly as it started.

ev1 6y ago
I made the mistake of ordering both crisps and bottled juice in one Pantry order. I have no idea why they don't algorithmically structure what to pack together, but I don't think I've ever had a full order arrive in non-broken state from pantry.

BugsJustFindMe 6y ago

A better headline would have been "Amazon merges Prime Pantry into regular .com site". > "As part of our commitment to delivering the best possible customer experience, we have decided to transfer Amazon Pantry selection to the main Amazon.com store so customers can get everyday household products faster, without an extra subscription or purchase requirement"

judge2020 6y ago
Source article seems to be https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-07/amazon-shutters-prime-pantry-an-early-online-grocery-initiative https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-07/amazon-sh...
gumby 6y ago
A better headline would have been "Amazon merges Prime Pantry > into regular .com site". Not exactly. The products for sale are still for sale on the site, yes. But the "pantry" product including a volume-based flat rate shipping. You entered products until you were told that your box was filled and then they shipped it to you flat rate. I used to fill it with kitty litter, dog food, cans of stuff and other heavy products. Now kitty litter is covered by prime free shipping so why pay extra for pantry?
- cloudwalking 6y ago
  FWIW I used to order kitty litter on Prime. Free shipping and all that. Turns out they hugely marked up the retail price for the free shipping. I’ve since found it on Walmart’s website for about 40% cheaper. Free shipping if I order 5 at a time.
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > FWIW I used to order kitty litter on Prime. Free shipping and all that. Turns out they hugely marked up the retail price for the free shipping. I’ve since found it on Walmart’s website for about 40% cheaper. Free shipping if I order 5 at a time. This is really common on Amazon, even for things that aren't heavy/large. Amazon used to be a place that gave you some of the best prices on things, but that hasn't been true for a long time.
    - ehsankia 6y ago
      I especially noticed this when I accidentally browsed logged out once. The same thing that was $X + $Y shipping became $(X + Y) + 0 Prime shipping...
      - hansvm 6y ago
        Awhile ago I used to sell a lot of consumer grade electronics on eBay, and one of the first things I noticed was that people were generally willing to pay more to have free shipping. $X+$Y shipping could easily turn into ($X+$Y+20%) + free shipping, and people would do it to themselves -- I'd start iPhones bidding at $0.99, and without fail I'd drum up a ton more business than I ever could with substantially lower fixed prices and accurate shipping costs.

sigjuice 6y ago

Good riddance. Most people just want to buy mundane household items without having to solve knapsack problems.

ketamine__ 6y ago
That's a great way to put it.
bombcar 6y ago
The only time I ordered from it I tried (and did pretty well) to fill the box with the cheapest most dense things I could find.
wkearney99 6y ago
SPOT ON. Of the few times I used it I hated it enough to just go use a regular grocery and some 3rd party shopper service.
jonas21 6y ago
I think it was a product from a different era. When Prime Pantry launched, Amazon hadn't acquired Whole Foods, and they didn't have a story for last-mile delivery yet. So they had to ship your order from a warehouse, and the only way to do that profitably on low-margin grocery items was to batch them up into a large order in a box of uniform dimensions. The fact that they no longer need to do this speaks to how far Amazon's logistics have come over the last 7 years.
- ubertoop 6y ago
  Among the growing list of documentaries I would love to watch, but have yet to find, Amazon's logistlics solutions is one at the top. Would be very cool to get a deep look at how all the various types of orders are handled.
  - bananaheel 6y ago
    This is more of a capturing of current state than a full blown documentary. I still learned a lot about amazon’s logistics. https://youtube.com/watch?v=2qanMpnYsjk https://youtube.com/watch?v=2qanMpnYsjk

cheriot 6y ago

It was an odd market niche. Only dry packaged groceries so I couldn't go "grocery shopping", but also could not be combined with my Fresh order. The limited selection and lack of a price benefit meant it wasn't worth the hassle of another order.

kube-system 6y ago
There were a lot of internet grocery stores that sold nonperishables in the days before Instacart. It was useful for people in rural locations that weren’t very mobile... and still is for the people who don’t live where fresh grocery delivery is available.
- mjevans 6y ago
  It might be better for society to help the orderly shutdown and consolidation of those areas towards communities dense enough to have a functional local economy. This would integrate well with new New Deal style programs where people are helped to migrate to jobs that enrich society and those working; and possibly recapture the former community areas as nature reserves or other non-housing lands.
  - RhodesianHunter 6y ago
    Or just let them live their lives where they want to live them?
  - TylerE 6y ago
    That'll last all of about 5 minutes, until some granny goes on the local TV news talking about how she's been forced out of the home she's lived in for the last 70 years.
  - kube-system 6y ago
    Many people naturally do this. The "I can't wait to grow up and get out of here" trope is universal to basically every small town in America. Many people with the means to do so also like to leave the city to move to small town America. There's really nothing wrong with either of these life experiences. People's needs are varied, both by person, and by the stage of their life. Living in an economic hotspot is more important to some people than it is to others.

bootlooped 6y ago

I had said many times Amazon had too many ways to order groceries: 1. Amazon.com 2. Amazon Prime Pantry 3. Amazon Fresh 4. Whole Foods via Amazon Prime Now 5. Amazon items via Amazon Prime Now* *I never figured out what exactly this was. Was it just Amazon.com listing reproduced in the Prime Now app? Was it Amazon Fresh and/or Prime Pantry items? Was it some other set of items?

stonogo 6y ago
Amazon Prime Now is basically direct courier delivery from the closest warehouse to your house. the app only presented things that were readily available in your area.
- tshaddox 6y ago
  My understanding was that it was distinct inventory at a distinct warehouse optimized for same-day fulfillment. At least in SF years ago, they had cold items like eggs and ice cream (before the Whole Foods merger).
- dawnerd 6y ago
  But whats weird is sometimes inventory would be different depending on if you were on the primenow website, or browsing amazon.com for same day or fresh. Sometimes prices were even different - like items would be on sale from primenow but full price on amazon.com. I very much miss prime now restaurants though. It was the best, no extra fees or anything other than a tip.
- shrimp_emoji 6y ago
  Warehouse? I thought it was a Whole Foods only thing.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    Prime Now was around before the WF acquisition.
DennisP 6y ago

baby 6y ago

I never understood what this product was to be honest.

egonschiele 6y ago

The move makes sense. In theory Prime Pantry is a good idea, since it reduces the cost of shipping that we're all paying as consumers on "free" shipping items. But the logistics of finding enough stuff to fill the box went against the idea of Amazon, which was think of a thing and order it immediately. I'm not sure if others were organized enough to order their paper towels/soap/toilet paper etc at the same time, but I certainly wasn't.

rvn1045 6y ago

This was just another experiment for Amazon. Shutting it down just means it didn't work out for whatever reason but they'll probably try a similar concept again with a few twists. There are so many 'businesses' under Amazon and many of them compete with each other. Often times this doesn't make sense to the end consumer but these are all just experiments being run to see what kinds of businesses might work.

jrochkind1 6y ago
Uh.. I think the similar concepts are Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods delivery.

sjg007 6y ago

Best part was things sold by Amazon were typically cheaper on Amazon vs pantry.

zxcvbn4038 6y ago

No loss - Prime Fresh has all the stuff that Prime Pantry had without that whole fill the box or pay a fee concept that was such a pain to work around. Though I have to admit I’m a bit disenchanted at the moment because I’ve had the same prime fresh basket open for almost two months now and all the baked goods I want are perpetually either out of stock or available one day further out then I can schedule. No problems with meat, cheese, or dairy but bakery goods are like catching unicorns.

tomc1985 6y ago

Prime Pantry was great... if all you care about is processed food Every time I tried to use it I couldn't find enough stuff to fill the box with. The bulky stuff (like canned sodas) were more expensive than costco, and I can only eat so many boxes of Cheez-its and Belvita bars

rezbull 6y ago

Be careful with the website posted. Nod32 reported one of the scripts as a trojan https://64bitss.club/www.google-analytics.com/subscriptioninsider.com.js https://64bitss.club/www.google-analytics.com/subscriptionin... Pretty sure this is spam.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

nsandell123 6y ago

> products, beverages, breakfast items and other household products in bulk for a $5 per month fee Is this separate from Amazon Prime? > Prime Pantry launched in 2014 and, similar to Amazon Fresh, Was Amazon Fresh the precursor to Prime Pantry? >In an email to Bloomberg, an Amazon spokesperson explained the company’s rationale for discontinuing Prime Pantry, Why is this author parroting a Bloomberg article? Hasn't bloomberg already reported on this? Is it just me or is Amazon bloated with so many deals and 15% off here 10 % off there? It seems annoying.

tingletech 6y ago
add on to prime, fresh and panty seemed unrelated (dry goods vs fresh food), Bloomberg article has a paywall

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

chovybizzass 6y ago

I was an early adopter of pantry, I used it twice and both times they were out of most of the things I ordered.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

zwaps 6y ago

I think it’s good because I don’t even get the distinction of all these services. Around here, we have Amazon, Amazon Pantry, Amazon Now and Amazon Fresh and they all sell more or less the same things. I mean I know there must be a difference but it sure isn’t obvious to me.