At the moment, Amazon Prime customers can enjoy free grocery delivery via the company’s Fresh service for checkouts worth $35 and above. It’s a reasonable and pretty affordable minimum purchase requirement, even for those live alone. But starting on February 28th, people would have to add a lot more items to their cart if they don’t want to pay extra to get their order delivered to their doorstep. As The Verge has noticed, the e-commerce giant has updated its Fresh grocery page to note that only orders worth above $150 will be delivered for free within a two-hour window by the end of next month.
Amazon will deliver orders between $100 and $150 for $4, while orders between $50 and $100 will incur a $7 service charge. If a customer’s items come up to less than $50, they’ll have to pay a whopping $10. Since the Fresh service is only available to subscribers already paying for Amazon Prime, which raised its annual fee to $139 from $119 last year, it will become a much pricier option by…
2023-01-28 05:55:38
Source from www.engadget.com Amazon Fresh is a grocery delivery service that offers customers convenient and fast access to groceries. However, a recent announcement from the company is sure to have customers rethinking their shopping habits.
By April 5, Amazon Fresh customers must place an order of at least $150 to receive free delivery. Customers who order less than this amount will incur a delivery fee that can range from five to thirty dollars.
It appears that this high minimum order requirement is meant to discourage customers from placing too many one-time or multiple small orders. This could reduce the burden on Amazon, who has had difficulty sourcing sufficient inventory due to the surge in consumer demand, as well as have benefits for customers.
Smaller orders tend to have a larger environmental footprint as they require resources associated with more packaging, delivery vehicles, and delivery trips. With the minimum order, customers might now place larger orders and order less frequently, leading to more sustainable consumption. Additionally, customers could save money and time when it comes to groceries, as larger orders cost less, take less time to deliver, and entail fewer trips to the grocery store.
However, customers who order smaller amounts of groceries at a time or who live in rural areas may be less enticed by this new initiative, as delivery fees can add up and may not be worth the effort or cost.
This new Amazon Fresh minimum order requirement is sure to impact the way consumers obtain their groceries. Time will tell if these changes are permanent or will just be a blip on the radar. Either way, it will be interesting to see how this affects both Amazon and their customers going forward.