Amazon has claimed to have achieved its “fastest Prime speeds ever” last quarter, saying that the majority (“more than half”) of Prime members across 60 of the US’s largest metropolitan areas received their order on or before the following day.
For the year-to-date, Amazon says it has shipped 1.8 billion units to Prime members in the US alone, which it says is nearly four times what it had achieved during the same period of 2019.
The years that followed 2019 have a tendency of skewing figures to a significant degree following a sizeable boom in online shopping. Ecommerce giants like Amazon saw increases in the number of items they were shipping, though delivery times typically suffered as a result.
Amazon Prime delivery
Now, though, the company looks to be back on track with record highs. In his blog post, Worldwide Amazon Stores CEO Doug Herrington explained that the number of items available with free Prime shipping now stands at more than 300 million, up from the one million in 2005 with the launch of Prime.
Delivery has also improved from a two-day service to one where “tens of millions” of popular items are available with same-day or next-day delivery as part of the Prime membership.
Herrington says that part of this is down to the restructuring of warehouses. Around three-quarters (76%) of US customers’ orders came from their regional warehouse (of which there are eight).
Besides this, the company has also sought to streamline its last-mile delivery service by taking same-day facilities closer to metropolitan areas, so that certain items have even less distance to travel. “Millions” of items are available for same-day delivery across 90 American metropolitan areas, with more set to follow.
With more than a handful of opportunities for SMBs to join forced with Amazon for payment and shipping options, up-and-coming businesses are now able to expose themselves to customers more quickly in return for satisfied customers. Ultimately good news for customers and SMBs, larger organizations with their own networks will be feeling the mounting pressure as they continue to battle it out with Amazon.
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