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Amazon's Drive-Up Grocery Stores Are Now Open To the Public In Seattle (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the ready-for-pickup dept.

Amazon has opened two drive-up grocery stores to the public that will allow Amazon Prime subscribers to place an online order and choose a two-hour pickup window for when they'd like to drive over and retrieve it. The Verge reports: Despite the stores being called "AmazonFresh Pickup," a membership to the company's home delivery grocery service isn't required. But if you do pay for AmazonFresh (an extra $14.99 per month on top of Prime's usual cost), your groceries will be ready within 15 minutes. Regular Prime customers have to wait at least two hours before the earliest pickup window becomes available. According to The Seattle Times, the first time you visit one of the two AmazonFresh Pickup locations, a concierge will enter your name and vehicle's license plate number into Amazon's systems. That way, during subsequent visits a license plate reader will automatically identify you and signal to employees that they should bring your order out to your car. The Times notes that this license plate scanning can be disabled from Amazon's website.

5 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. How is this news? by Barny · · Score: 4, Informative

    Supermarkets have been doing online shop&collect for quite a few years here (with no cost overhead), and delivery of groceries (for free in some circumstances).

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    /me sighs
    1. Re:How is this news? by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

      This is in the Cloud.

  2. Re:Walmart already has this. Almost no one uses it by jedidiah · · Score: 2

    This could appeal to anyone that doesn't want to set foot in Walmart (et al) for whatever reason.

    This isn't any more "fetish" material than a any delivery service including normal Amazon.

    This certainly beats needing to deal with crowds of idiots that view grocery shopping as entertainment and bring their whole families along and clutter the whole place up.

    If you have a set shopping list, it's much less bother.

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    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  3. Re:Walmart already has this. Almost no one uses it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So crippling social phobias and misanthropy, basically.

  4. "Fresh" by DrXym · · Score: 2
    So the proposition is you pay a heap of money for someone to shop for you. This person doesn't give a damn about freshness because they're being Amazon micromanaged. They don't care if the tins are dented, or meat is going brown or contains tubes, or if the milk carton is leaking, or the bread has a few days before its stale since they're not the ones who're going to eat it. After working a whole shift fulfilling lazy assholes, they probably hope you choke on it.

    Frankly I wonder who this service is even meant for.