Support the fact-based journalism you rely on with a donation to Marketplace today. Give Now!

Do those grocery bags say Amazon.com?

Molly Wood Jun 5, 2013
HTML EMBED:
COPY

Do those grocery bags say Amazon.com?

Molly Wood Jun 5, 2013
HTML EMBED:
COPY

Forget your local bookstore, Amazon.com might be a threat to your local grocery store, too. According to Reuters, Amazon is on the verge of bringing online grocery delivery to cities across the country. The company has been testing what it calls “AmazonFresh” in Seattle. But unnamed sources say customers in Los Angeles and San Francisco will soon be able to get their cheerios, milk and bananas from Amazon.

There are already several players in the e-commerce grocery market, but nobody is dominating yet. But, Amazon’s heap of consumer data and buying habits may give it an edge.

“They probably have more data than anybody else does — that gives them a leg up,” says David Bell, professor of marketing at the Wharton School of Business. “Also they are a very broad retailer in terms of the product categories they offer, they are really very much your proverbial ‘soup to nut’.”

20 other cities could reportedly see AmazonFresh as soon as 2014.

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.