We have all been there: you open your cabinet to get some drink after a hard day at work only to discover that you are out of alcohol. Or, worse, some friends are coming over and your friendly neighborhood liquor shop is closed.
Well, worry not, for Amazon is here for the rescue, yet again. The e-commerce giant has started a one and two-hour delivery service for beer, wine, and hard liquor through its Prime Now service. This is the first time the company has included booze in its lineup, competing with the likes of niche apps like Minibar and Drizly.
Through the Prime Now app, customers receive two-hour deliveries for free; one-hour deliveries are an additional $7.99 per order. The service is now available in 14 major US cities, including Seattle, San Francisco, Dallas/Fort Worth, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Boston and Baltimore, and operates between the hours of 8 am to midnight. In case you have been living under a rock till now (or been drinking pretty hard -we don’t judge) Prime Now is Amazon’s instant delivery service exclusive to members of the $99 Amazon Prime shipping membership.
An Amazon spokesperson said, “We will continue to learn from customers and if they love the offering of alcohol in the service, we will look to continue to expand it.”
Drizly is already in 15 cities and promises consumers that they’ll pay the same price for alcohol as they would in the store, and receive it in as little as 20 minutes – all for a flat fee of $5.00. Klink, a similar service, is growing quickly and has an even lower delivery fee, though it’s not clear whether they can match Amazon or Drizly’s speed.