Will Amazon's 1-hour delivery service come to your city soon?
Amazon has been quietly rolling out Prime Now, a 1-hour delivery service on select items, in new cities over the past few months.
An Amazon.com package awaits delivery from UPS in Palo Alto, Calif. Amazon's Prime Now service has been expanded to five new cities in 2015, including Atlanta and Miami.
Paul Sakuma/AP/File
Amazon's Prime Now service offers 1-hour delivery on select items, and over the last few months聽Amazon has been quietly rolling it out in new cities.
Try looking聽online for a list of cities and zip codes where Prime Now is available and you probably won't find it. You can enter your zip code to see if it's offered in your neighborhood yet, or enter random zip codes if you like, but that's about all you can do without some serious sleuthing.
However,聽with new cities seemingly coming online every few weeks now, we thought it was a good time to round up everything we know about Prime Now so far.
What is Prime Now?
"There are times when you can't make it to the store and other times when you simply don't want to go. There are so many reasons to skip the trip and now Prime members in Manhattan can get the items they need delivered in an hour or less," said Dave Clark, Amazon's senior vice president of worldwide operations in a聽聽announcing service in Manhattan.
Prime Now聽is a same-day delivery service available to Prime subscribers on聽select household items. Two-hour delivery on eligible items is free, while that highly touted 1-hour delivery will run you $7.99.
It's important to note that not only are聽you聽expected聽to tip your聽delivery driver, but that you must do it through the聽聽since the drivers aren't supposed to accept cash -聽and聽.
It's easy to imagine that Prime Now will聽integrate seamlessly with聽, the little household stick-ups that let you press, say, a laundry detergent button on your washing machine, to automatically order a refill.聽However, that service聽is currently in beta and by invitation only.
Where is Prime Now available?
As of May 11, 2015, there聽are seven cities on the list.
- Atlanta
- Austin
- Baltimore
- Brooklyn
- Dallas
- Manhattan
- Miami
In聽most cases, Prime Now is available only in select zip codes, so if you're in one of the cities listed above聽you'll need to聽.聽Even if your zip code isn't included right now, new zip codes are added within these cities on a regular basis, so keep checking back.
In the聽same press release we mentioned above, Clark said,聽"Prime members in Manhattan are going to love this service and聽we cannot wait to roll out Prime Now to additional cities in 2015." In the first four months of 2015, Amazon added five cities and expanded the beta to include聽. It's only May, so we're expecting to see several new cities added to the list before year end. (Fingers crossed for Chicago!)
You can聽聽for iOS or Android to be notified when Amazon makes it available in your neighborhood.
What are Prime Now's hours?
In most cities, Prime Now is available from 8am-10pm, seven days a week according to their original press releases. A聽couple聽others run from 8am to midnight.聽The original Manhattan press release made note of 6am to midnight hours. There is no round-the-clock聽delivery yet.
Will you give Prime Now a try when it comes to town?聽For those of you who have tried聽Prime Now, what was your experience like?
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