Amazon tried to break the Walmart grocery store for decades, with limited success. A massive expansion of purchases the same day could change this

“The average consumer visits between four and five different retailers for the grocery store each month,” said the executive in front of a smaller group of journalists later. What Amazon was doing, said the executive was to create a one -stop shop that all customers are looking for. The obvious involvement was that Walmart, the Historic Single Historical Retail option, did not hold the promise.

Wednesday, Amazon announced progress on what it believes to be an important step in this mission: the deployment of 1,000 American cities of a purchasing capacity the same day that customers can buy fresh and perishable grocery products, alongside regular non -annoying goods in a single order. The company claims that the service should be available in 2,300 American cities by the end of 2025, which allows Amazon customers to order milk and fruit as well as batteries or a camera – in a single delivery that arrives the same day. Such an order would not bear delivery costs for first -rate members as long as it totaled at least $ 25 in “most cities,” said the company. The orders below this threshold will bear delivery costs of $ 2.99. Amazon customers who are not premium members will pay delivery costs of $ 12.99, regardless of the size of the order.

Walmart’s stock fell by more than 2% on news and lost more than $ 15 billion in market capitalization. The share price of the Instacart grocery delivery company fell 11%.

“The reason why this announcement is so important,” Scott Devitt of Wedbush Securities Wednesday in a research note, “is that Amazon has not yet moved operational operators in the category of grocery stores, at least for the perishable. The grocery store is the largest category of retail and always relatively intact by the Internet.”

Indeed.

In an interview for my book, The winner sells everything, Regarding Amazon / Walmart rivalry, the current CEO of Amazon’s basic activity, Doug Herrington, explained the attraction of the category of grocery store. “Selling a book or a TV is super and super useful, (but) how many times should I buy a book or a TV each week in relation to how many times should I buy an item of packaged products, or toilet paper or food?”

In short, if Amazon can start making a real bump on the grocery delivery market, customers will probably buy even more frequently from the Internet giant. In fact, the company previously declared that it was the behavior it had witnessed customers on the test markets last year.

“This deepens AMZN’s customer engagement by strengthening a high -frequency purchase category in the main ecosystem, increasing the adhesion and life value of the customer,” wrote Mark Mahaney of Evercore on the deployment of grocery store on the same day in a research note to customers on Wednesday. He said the service could be a threat to Instacart as well as the Walmart, Walmart +delivery program.

A history of launches, pivots and reverse

The path to the alley of the grocery store was long and sometimes bumpy for Amazon, this week’s announcement marking the last in a series of launches, failures and pivots linked to the grocery store in the past two decades. For those who closely followed the company’s efforts in this area, the announcement on Wednesday could even feel like the already seen. Amazon once organized a service called premium Now which offered a two -hour delivery to a limited selection of general goods, as well as fresh and frozen grocery stores in around 100 American metropolitan areas. It was abandoned in 2021, the company saying at the time that it was folded in the main main purchase platform.

Amazon also offers the Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service, intended for larger grocery orders, which it actually started to test in 2007. The service has been gone by countless business model adjustments over the years, because leadership has tried to find a balance between an attractive price for enough customers while supporting an economically durable cost structure. Amazon also manages a chain of dozens of fresh Amazon grocery stores, which have crossed phases of dismissal and expansion itself.

And of course, Amazon made its greatest grocery store in 2017 when she spent nearly $ 14 billion to acquire the brick and mortar grocer, who now has more than 500 locations.

Amazon offers unlimited grocery delivery from Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods grocery channels at a cost of $ 9.99 per month in addition to the main membership fees.

Along the way, Amazon has seemed to dispel the idea that he has failed in the grocery space. During the press event in the fall, an Amazon leader said: “What most people do not realize is that we already have a huge grocery business established online … Most of the selection today, these are things like the pantry and household items or what we call Everyday Essentials.”

And during recent income calls, Amazon leaders, including CEO Andy Jassy, hammered the message that this “essentials” company is already a major player in the non -perishable grocery area. The company’s leaders recently revealed that Amazon had sold more than $ 100 billion in grocery stores and households, or every day, in 2024, not to mention what was sold through its Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods divisions.

Now, with this latest initiative, Amazon goes to the type of fresh and perishable food to which customers really think when they hear the word “grocery”. And he does it in a certain way, thanks to years of reduction in under Jassy, which he finally believes lasting.