After first launching in-garage delivery options last year for customers in Chicago and three dozen other cities, Amazon is now expanding the service to thousands of new cities thanks to its partnership with a local garage door company.
Amazon announced Thursday that it's bringing its garage delivery feature, called Key by Amazon, to more than 4,000 cities across the U.S. It launched Key in 2019 in a deal with Oak Brook, Ill.-based garage company Chamberlain Group, which is providing its myQ-connected garage door opening technology to Amazon.
Since the launch of Key by Amazon, the service has been available to Prime members across 37 cities, with Amazon fulfilling over 2 million in-garage deliveries to date. Now, the service is being made available to a much larger swath of the country ahead of the holiday shopping season.
"Not only has (Key by Amazon) become a package delivery option that Prime members can trust to protect their packages against damage, weather and theft, but it has also provided a true contactless delivery experience during the pandemic," Tyler Lenczuk, director of delivery services for Chamberlain Group, said in a statement.
To use the service, Prime members can select "In-Garage Delivery" at checkout on Amazon, and an Amazon delivery driver receives a one-time garage access validation upon arrival to deliver the items.
In addition, Amazon announced today the launch of Key In-Garage Grocery Delivery, which allows Prime members to have their grocery orders from Whole Foods Market or Amazon Fresh delivered to their garage. The service is initially available in select parts of Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.
The expanded Key by Amazon service is a bet by the e-commerce giant that more Americans are willing to have items dropped inside their garage— a perceived tradeoff in privacy for the security of not leaving items out on your doorstep. Amazon says that 63 million homes in the U.S. are already equipped with a myQ smart garage system, and others can add the feature with a myQ Smart Garage Hub.
