Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) is partnering with grocery chain Metropolitan Market to offer same-day delivery to customers in the Seattle area, the tech giant announced Tuesday.
It's the latest in Amazon's strategy to license its technology and logistics tools to third parties.
Deliveries are available from stores in four locations: Sammamish, Tacoma, and Seattle's Queen Anne and Crown Hill neighborhoods.
“We look forward to expanding our two-hour delivery window offering to more Metropolitan Market locations in the future," Christian Seitel, head of U.S. grocery partnerships at Amazon, said in a news release.
Amazon is offering Prime members discounts, including free delivery for the first three Metropolitan Market deliveries of $10 or more. Members are also eligible to sign up for a $9.99 monthly delivery subscription for orders of $35 or more from Metropolitan Market and other Amazon-affiliated grocers and specialty retailers.
Amazon also licenses its Just Walk Out technology, which allows shoppers to scan a payment method upon entering a store, shop and then walk out without going through a checkout line. The company in April decided to pull the technology from its Amazon Fresh grocery stores, opting instead for Amazon Dash Carts, smart-shopping carts that scan items as customers put them in their carts. Amazon Fresh also offers online shopping.
Amazon is instead focusing Just Walk Out on smaller convenience stores, such as its own Amazon Go stores, plus other small spaces with lots of foot traffic, such as concession areas at stadiums. The technology is in more than 170 third-party locations, including Seattle's Lumen Field, Climate Pledge Arena and T-Mobile Park.
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Amazon is also developing radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to offer Just Walk Out in retail settings, starting with shops at stadiums. The tech relies on RFID tags and only needs cameras at the checkout area, making it a fit for retail stores but not grocery stores, as most grocery items don't have a tag. The tech debuted last year and is already in a handful of stadiums.
Metropolitan Market launched with one store in 1971. The high-end grocer, a subsidiary of Carson, California-based Good Food Holdings, now has 10 locations, all in the Seattle area. The Crown Hill location opened in August of last year.
In addition to its Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go stores, Amazon bought Whole Foods in 2017 for $13.7 billion.
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