Amazon delivering over 10mn items in a day in US

E-commerce giant Amazon has officially announced that over 10 million products are already eligible to fall under its one-day delivery programme that it has rolled out for its Prime members in across 44 major metropolitan areas in the US.

"As you may have heard, we are expanding one-day delivery with Amazon Prime. Today, Prime Free One Day is available to members with no minimum purchase amount on more than ten million products, coast to coast. Millions of members are already noticing and enjoying free one-day delivery," the company wrote in a blog-post on Monday.

In addition, the e-commerce giant has also begun delivery within hours with its Prime Now sevices.

"For delivery in a matter of hours, members can also use Prime Now to receive grocery delivery from Whole Foods Market in nearly 90 US metros, or grocery pickup in as little as 30 minutes in 30 metros, with more to come in 2019," the post said.

In an earnings call in April, Brian Olsavsky, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Amazon, announced the company's plan of investing $800 million and building most of this one-day Prime delivery capacity throughout 2019.

However, Stuart Appelbaum, President of Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union at Amazon has expressed his fear that speeding up deliveries could be dangerous for employees at the Amazon fulfilment centres.

Despite criticism and work pressure complaints from its warehouse employees, earlier in May, Amazon quietly began executing its one-day Prime shipping, cutting down from the traditional two-day delivery window.

"Prime Free One Day is already ten times larger than the original two-day offering launched in 2005. But we will keep adding more selection and expanding our delivery areas to ensure Prime members get their products faster than ever," the post added.

--IANS

rp/ksk