Amazon rolled out its Prime Now program in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, offering two hour or less delivery services on a range of its products. The new service comes slightly over two years since the same-day delivery by Amazon Prime debuted in the area. It also one-ups Google, which debuted its own same-day grocery service around the same time.
"It will be great for people who aren't lazy but perhaps procrastinators or forgetful," Amazon spokesperson Amanda Ip told DC Inno. "We started it earlier in Northern Virginia and Southern Maryland but are really excited to bring it into D.C."
The service isn't available everywhere in the District as of yet, limited to the Capitol Hill, Georgetown and Friendship Heights neighborhoods, although tests of different ZIP codes indicate you can still get delivery in other areas. Ip ascribed the limitations to simple logistics, as opposed to the awkward economics that for a while kept the regular Amazon Prime from servicing predominantly black neighborhoods like Southeast D.C. areas.
"It's solely based on how far we can go from the [NoVa] hub in two hours pending traffic," Ip said. We want to be confident in our delivery and use so many different algorithms to work it out."
As for what is available, unsurprisingly, there's a lot of food and perishable items, but Ip suggested the service will be popular around the holidays, especially for things like office White Elephant parties. The early testing found products like organic baby carrots, bananas and Haribo gummy bears to be particularly popular.
The very first delivery using the service in D.C., however, came Wednesday morning when an Amazon employee used it to order coffee and treats for the nurses and his family at the hospital where his wife was in labor.
"He was there waiting for his new bundle of joy," Ip said. "Both of them."
