Amazon is further reducing wait times for online shopping. The e-commerce giant announced on Tuesday that it has officially launched a 30-minute ultra-fast delivery service called "Amazon Now" in dozens of cities across the United States, focusing on fresh groceries, household necessities and other local high-demand products.
According to reports, users can purchase "thousands of items" on the Amazon app and website that are eligible for the service, including fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy products and eggs, baked goods, personal care and health products, maternal, infant and pet supplies, small electronic products, and alcohol in regions permitted by regulations. Eligible products will be marked with "30-minute delivery" on the page, and Amazon Now-related options will also be displayed simultaneously when users browse and shop.
Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Philadelphia and Seattle will be the first to roll out 30-minute delivery at scale in the first coverage areas. Cities such as Austin, Denver, Houston, Minneapolis, Orlando, Oklahoma City and Phoenix will soon join. Amazon said it expects to offer the service to tens of millions of consumers in these cities and beyond as it continues to expand this year.
In terms of price strategy, Amazon Now has chosen the same aggressive route as speed. While 30-minute delivery isn't free, Prime members get a significant discount: Delivery is only $3.99 per order, compared to $13.99 for non-members. For small orders under $15, there is an additional small order fee of $1.99 for Prime members and $3.99 for non-members. Compared with the "complex charging models" of some competing platforms—including fluctuating delivery fees, service fees, expected tips, and potential single-item price increases—Amazon believes that this rate structure is more intuitive and the overall cost is more advantageous for Prime members.
In fact, Amazon has been conducting pilot tests of 30-minute delivery in Seattle and Philadelphia as early as December 2025, competing head-on with local instant delivery services such as DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Instacart. With the official commercialization and expansion of coverage, this service is regarded as Amazon’s concentrated firepower output in the local life and instant retail fields.
In order to deliver orders within half an hour, Amazon has launched a fulfillment network that is different from the traditional large-scale warehousing system. The company arranges smaller fulfillment points closer to users' living and working areas, and improves picking and distribution efficiency by compressing driving distance and reducing inventory range, thereby supporting the 30-minute delivery time target. In most regions, Amazon Now will provide 24-hour service to meet consumer demand around the clock.
Udit Madan, Amazon's senior vice president of global operations, said in a statement that Amazon Now is aimed at those who "need or want to receive an Amazon order within 30 minutes." For example, he said that users can use this service to replenish ingredients before dinner, buy AirPods urgently before departure, or instantly replenish household necessities such as laundry detergent and toothpaste in daily life.
Amazon Now will exist in parallel with Amazon’s existing multi-tiered “extremely fast delivery matrix.” As of March this year, Amazon offers one-hour and three-hour delivery on more than 90,000 items in the United States, as well as same-day delivery on millions of items. In eight regions in the United States, Amazon is also piloting a drone delivery project within 60 minutes through Prime Air to test more extreme instant fulfillment capabilities.
From a business perspective, Amazon’s fast delivery has become an important part of the Prime membership experience. In 2025, Prime members around the world received more than 13 billion items through same-day or next-day delivery, of which the U.S. market alone contributed 8 billion, a year-on-year increase of 30%. As 30-minute delivery services are launched in more cities, this number is expected to rise further, which will also continue to raise the "ceiling" of the entire e-commerce industry in terms of fulfillment speed and service expectations.