Oliver Haslam·

Amazon Instant Pickup Launches, Lets You Grab Orders From Physical Stores In Under 2 Minutes

As Amazon continues its push to take over the world of retail, it has announced a new Instant Pickup service which allows customers to place orders and then collect them at one of five specific locations in a select few cities.

Those cities include: Los Angeles; Atlanta; Berkeley, California; Columbus, Ohio; and College Park, Maryland. Orders are placed by Amazon Prime and Amazon Prime Student customers via the dedicated Amazon iOS or Android app.

As is to be expected, particularly at this early stage, items from a relatively small collection of daily essentials and daily care collections can be bought for Instant Pickup, along with Amazon’s own devices such as the Kindle and Echo range.

“Instant Pickup is another way Amazon is making life more convenient for Prime members,” said Ripley MacDonald, Director, Student Programs, Amazon. “As shopping behaviors continue to evolve, customers consistently tell us that they want items even faster. Whether it’s a snack on-the-go, replacing a lost phone charger in the middle of a hectic day or adding Alexa to your life with an Echo, Instant Pickup saves Prime members time. While Instant Pickup is available at select pickup locations today, we’re excited about bringing this experience to more customers soon.”

Once an order is placed, customers will be able to pick it up after around two minutes, with orders put into lockers that will be accessed via a special barcode that will be emailed upon order creation. There is no fee associated with using the Instant Pickup service, although customers will need to be Amazon Prime subscribers in order to take advantage of it. Surely at this point everyone is already subbed up though, right?

Amazon’s buyout of Whole Foods and its continued expansion into brick and mortar stores along with this latest news, goes on to show that the one-time book store has no intention of letting up on its constant aim to be the company that sells us everything, anytime, anywhere.

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