Blog

Amazon "primes" the pump to play major role in restaurant delivery

It's called Prime Day and Amazon clearly sees it as a prime opportunity to make a major entry into the restaurant delivery business.

July 6, 2016 by S.A. Whitehead — Food Editor, Net World Media Group

Americans have become obsessed with super-speedy delivery and the people at Amazon are more than happy to accommodate our impatience. In fact, the company has an entire day devoted to calling attention to its rapid-delivery prowess and it's coming up next week.

Amazon said it will celebrate its second annual Prime Day next Tuesday, July 12, nationwide, with deals galore on delivery to your door. This second annual event is focusing on the company's "under-an-hour" delivery times for Amazon Prime customers. 

And as this IS Amazon, you can assume there is probably some kind of an ulterior marketing motive behind this year's campaign. Judging from the publicity information around the event, that motive may very well have to do with calling attention to Amazon's relatively new food delivery service, Amazon Restaurants, now available in a dozen larger metropolitan areas and offering free delivery in under an hour.

Add to that the fact that on the July 12 Prime Day, customers in those areas will get a code for $20 off a future Amazon Restaurants order and you have the makings of a promotion nearly guaranteed to bring in new "foodie" customers. The fact that the one-hour food delivery is free for Amazon Restaurants members makes this an even stronger probability. 

"The only thing better than snapping up amazing deals on Prime Day is having your order arrive just minutes or hours after placing your order through Prime Now," said Stephenie Landry, worldwide vice president of Prime Now. "Prime Day is all about rolling out the red carpet for Prime members, and we know customers love the amazing convenience of receiving their order in lightning-fast speeds."

Beginning today, and running through Tuesday, July 12, members who place their first Prime Now order with a special promo code get $10 off that order, and a code for $10 toward a purchase through Prime Now later this month. For Prime Now customers, two-hour delivery is free, but you'll pay $7.99 for delivery of your purchase in an hour. 

Now for the fun stuff

Here are some interesting tidbits from last year's Prime Day sales:

•    Fastest delivery of day: iRobot Roomba 595 pet vacuum cleaning robot delivered to Austin, Texas in 10 minutes and 23 seconds. 
•    Day's best-selling item:Amazon Fire TV Stick, followed by the Kindle e-reader and iRobot Roomba.
•    City with most orders placed: Manhattan came in No. 1, followed by Austin, with Baltimore in the No. 3 position for the day. 

About S.A. Whitehead

---

Pizza Marketplace and QSRweb editor Shelly Whitehead is a former newspaper and TV reporter with an affinity for telling stories about the people and innovative thinking behind great brands.