SHORTER DELIVERY TIME
Amazon opens ‘instant’ pickup points in the US
Berkeley — Amazon.com is rolling out pickup points in the US, where shoppers can retrieve items immediately after ordering them, shortening delivery times from hours to minutes, the company said on Tuesday. The world’s largest online retailer has launched "Instant Pickup" points around five college campuses, such as the University of California at Berkeley, it said. Amazon has plans to open more sites by the end of 2017, including one in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighbourhood. Shoppers on Amazon’s mobile app can select from several hundred fast-selling items at each site, from snacks and drinks to phone chargers. Amazon employees in a back room then load orders into lockers within two minutes and customers receive bar codes to access them. The news underscores the e-commerce company’s broader push into brick-and-mortar retail. Amazon, which said in June it would buy Whole Foods Market for $13.7bn, has come to realise that certain transactions such as buying fresh produce are hard to s...
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