This has positive synergies with Amazon's long-term plans: near-instant availability. One of Amazon's largest costs right now is shipping, and their volume is

This has positive synergies with Amazon's long-term plans: near-instant availability. One of Amazon's largest costs right now is shipping, and their volume is approaching the scale where running their own last-mile transportation, in some cities, starts to make a lot of sense. These are also, coincidentally, the cities that are dense enough to support a delivery grocery business. So basically: - Freedom from the tyranny of UPS, FedEx, and shitty last-mile delivery companies like OnTrac. - Lower cost and higher efficiency of a shipping infrastructure that is tailor-made for their product variety and delivery timing. - A convenient way to build said infrastructure in a way that does not involve Amazon going all-in with their core business, and instead allows them to slowly attach the main Amazon.com experience as the delivery infrastructure grows. - Domination of yet another vertical. I'm excited. I used Amazon Fresh in Seattle when I lived there, and nowadays in NYC even the vaunted FreshDirect simply does not compare. New Yorkers think they've seen the end-all-be-all of grocery deliveries, but they ain't seen squat yet.