Jack Tomson is chief growth officer at Trojan Commerce, the retail, fulfilment and refurbishment partner behind many of the UK’s leading brands. Today he looks at how Amazon are pushing the boundaries to take on the likes of Uber and Deliveroo with Amazon Now:
Ultra-fast grocery delivery is back in the spotlight. With the launch and rapid expansion of Amazon’s Amazon Now service, the retail giant is once again testing how much British consumers truly value speed.
But this is not simply a story about ultra-fast grocery delivery. It is a stress test for the wider UK convenience market. At first glance, Amazon Now looks like a logical extension of the Prime promise – frictionless ordering, vast range and ever-shorter delivery windows. Yet look closer, and it feels less like a breakthrough and more like Amazon pushing further into territory long occupied by rapid delivery platforms such as Uber and Deliveroo.
Rapid grocery platforms have spent years training consumers to expect speed bundled with offers and visible value. Amazon, by contrast, is asking Prime members to pay extra for 60-minute fulfilment without yet presenting a radically different proposition. That makes this less a logistics milestone and more a live commercial experiment in how far paid-for convenience can stretch in the UK. If Amazon succeeds, the implications will extend well beyond groceries, reshaping expectations across the entire convenience sector.
The commercial reality behind rapid grocery
Over the past decade, Amazon has normalised next-day fulfilment to the point where it is seen as standard. Against that backdrop, cutting delivery times to an hour may not feel transformative, particularly if it comes at an additional cost.
The economics are also demanding. Ultra-fast grocery depends on dark stores, hyper-local inventory and tightly managed last-mile delivery. It is operationally intensive, and margins are thin. The central question for the UK convenience market is whether enough shoppers will consistently choose paid-for immediacy over free or lower-cost next-day options.
Consumer behaviour adds another layer of uncertainty. UK shoppers are pragmatic and value-driven, particularly during periods of economic pressure. Ultra-fast delivery is likely to win in urgent top-up scenarios, but full weekly shops are unlikely to migrate wholesale to premium rapid slots. That reinforces the idea that Amazon Now may shift the edges of convenience behaviour, rather than redefine the mainstream.
Amazon’s retreat from its cashier-less Fresh stores showed that not every bold retail idea reshapes habits at scale. Amazon Now avoids the capital intensity of physical retail, but it still depends on repeat use. Trial is not enough; it must become routine. And routine is what ultimately determines whether the wider convenience market has to structurally adapt.
The more plausible outcome is nuanced. Amazon Now may thrive in dense urban areas and among time-poor professionals, operating as a premium layer within the broader convenience ecosystem. Scaling nationally will test whether convenience can consistently outweigh cost sensitivity, and whether the economics stack up outside metropolitan hotspots.
The strategic play behind the speed
Behind the headlines about delivery windows may sit a deeper objective. Rapid grocery is not simply about food; it is about infrastructure density and data.
If Amazon can make one-hour delivery economically viable across a broader footprint, it strengthens its position as the default convenience layer for everyday life. That has implications far beyond groceries. It builds the operational backbone for adjacent categories – household essentials, baby care, personal health and potentially regulated goods.
In the United States, Amazon has already moved into over-the-counter medicines with rapid fulfilment. If similar models were extended more assertively in the UK, the debate would shift quickly from convenience to regulation and public policy. For the UK convenience market, that would represent a step change in competitive dynamics.
If Amazon becomes the platform consumers instinctively turn to for immediate access to essentials, traditional convenience stores, supermarkets, and rapid delivery specialists must respond. They will need to match speed, sharpen value, or double down on local differentiation. In that sense, Amazon Now is less a product launch and more a strategic probe into the boundaries of the entire sector.
What this means for brands
Amazon Now underlines a hard truth for retailers and manufacturers alike: marketplaces do not just offer reach, they define the service standard.
When Amazon pushes one-hour delivery, expectations rise across categories. If shoppers begin to see ultra-fast fulfilment as normal, brands supplying the UK convenience market must be able to support that pace. If they cannot meet required service levels, the consequences are lower visibility, weaker rankings and lost sales.
Competing in this environment requires accurate inventory, flexible warehousing and seamless integration with marketplace systems. The stronger approach is to build fulfilment capability that works across both marketplaces and direct-to-consumer channels. Agile, end-to-end 3PL infrastructure, supported by data-driven insight, allows brands to meet rising delivery standards while retaining greater control over margin and customer relationships.
Whether it is Amazon Now or the next innovation from a major platform, the tempo of change in the UK convenience market is increasingly set by the largest players. Brands that develop flexible, channel-balanced operations will be best placed not just to react, but to compete on their own terms.
