Amazon has announced plans to reach “tens of millions of customers” with fast delivery to rural areas by the end of 2025.
Its plans include reaching more than 4,000 smaller cities, towns and rural communities in the U.S. with same-day and next-day delivery. Furthermore, it said it is investing more than $4 billion to triple its delivery network by the end of next year, focusing on small towns and rural areas. Amazon said that for each new facility it opens, it creates an average of 170 jobs at the delivery stations themselves, plus more through “driving opportunities.”
It also wants to transform existing rural stations into “hybrid hubs that serve multiple functions.” That includes on-site inventory storage to enable delivery within hours and preparing packages for last-mile delivery, Amazon said.
“This expansion will transform how rural customers shop online by delivering a wide range of popular items within hours for the first time ever,” Amazon said in a statement announcing the initiative.
It added that it’s using advanced machine learning algorithms to predict which items will resonate with local Prime members “based on their unique needs.” The investment in fast delivery to rural areas comes a week after Amazon announced its summer Prime Day sales event, which it said will be in July.
Source: Amazon
Amazon ranks No. 1 in Digital Commerce 360’s Top 2000 Database. The database is how Digital Commerce 360 tracks the largest North American online retailers by their annual ecommerce sales. Amazon is also No. 3 in Digital Commerce 360’s Global Online Marketplaces Database. That database ranks the 100 largest such marketplaces by third-party gross merchandise value (GMV).
Amazon’s investment in fast delivery to rural areas
In its release, Amazon said fast delivery is driving significant growth in its everyday essentials category — that’s a strong incentive to expand the service to rural areas. Its everyday essentials include groceries and household goods, and Amazon said the category is growing more than twice as fast as all its categories in the U.S.
Amazon also said it has already begun offering faster delivery speeds to more than 1,000 smaller communities. Without specifying, it noted that customers in those areas shop more frequently and purchase household essentials “at significantly higher rates.”
It did say, though, that more than 90% of its top 50 repurchased items for same-day delivery in those areas are everyday essentials. And so far this year, Amazon said, it has increased by 30% the number of items it delivered the same day or next day in the U.S.
Source: Amazon
Amazon noted that “one of the biggest benefits of this expansion” is that everyday essentials are “speed-critical.” When customers need those items, they often also want them delivered as soon as possible, Amazon said.
“Everybody loves fast delivery,” said Doug Herrington, CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, in the statement. “So, whether you live in Monmouth, Iowa, or in downtown Los Angeles, now you’re going to have the same fantastic Amazon customer experience: the ability to get the wide variety of items you need to keep your household running every day, delivered the same or next day.”
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