Amazon has launched Prime Now north of the border in Scotland. For the first time the Scots, well the ones that live in Glasgow, can order any of 15,000 products and have them arrive on their doorstep within the hour.
Cost for delivery within the hour is Amazon’s normal Prime Now charge of £6.99 per delivery, or you can choose a two-hour, same-day delivery slots between 10am and 10pm, seven days a week for free.
Amazon tell us that Prime Now is now available to more than 30% of the UK population.
Following the London launch in June 2015 Prime Now expanded rapidly to Birmingham, Newcastle, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Portsmouth, South Yorkshire, Surrey and surrounding areas and now Glasgow.
One of the fastest Amazon Prime Now deliveries this month was Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End for PS4, which was ordered at 11:10am, sent out of Amazon’s delivery station in Leeds and delivered at 11:20am to a postcode in Beeston, taking just 10 minutes from click to delivery.
The launch of Prime Now follows the introduction last year of the Prime Same Day service to Prime Members in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Prime customers receive unlimited same-day delivery on one million items from Amazon UK, at no additional cost to their Prime membership. Orders placed by noon are delivered between 6pm and 10pm the same day, seven days a week.
Amazon will doubtless continue to pick off the large cities for their Prime Now service. At some point they’ll hit a limit where it no longer becomes viable to deliver within the hour to smaller towns and villages due to the costs of holding stock in these locations.
Perhaps drones really will help Amazon expand their reach for satisfying the immediate gratification of their customers, but even then range is likely to be limited to about 30 minutes flying time. Those of us who live in the bucolic countryside will just have to accept that Prime Now will probably never be available to us.
One Response
it’s hardly unreasonable to pick cities for time sensitive services, you cant get an ambulance within an hour in a lot of rural locations. or even a pizza.
if you were to drive yourself, many people would be more than an hour away from a retail copy of uncharted 4; so i wouldnt expect Amazon to turn that around any time soon.
glad to see someone heading North of the Border though. i’m suddenly tempted to look at a prime subscription.