Amazon Prime Begins Delivering Purchases by Bicycle

18 Dec, 2014 By: Erik Gruenwedel

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Delivery service launches in Manhattan, N.Y., with additional big city rollouts planned in 2015

Need Breaking Bad: The Complete Series DVD for a Christmas gift as quickly as possible? Forget FedEx or drones.

Amazon Dec. 18 is going old school to deliver select purchases in one hour in large cities. The e-commerce behemoth is offering Prime members free delivery by bicycle messenger within two hours of order. Deliveries within one hour cost $7.99.

Called Prime Now, the delivery service bowed in Manhattan, N.Y. — ground zero for the bicycle messenger industry — offering 60-minute delivery on tens of thousands of daily essentials (or small orders) ordered through a mobile . Items delivered by bike include paper towels, packaged media, consumer electronics, shampoo, books, toys and batteries, among others.

The $99 Prime membership includes free two-day shipping on myriad orders, in addition to unlimited streaming of movies, TV shows and music.

The Prime Now app is available on iOS and Android devices. The delivery service is available from 6 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week. A portion of Amazon’s new building on 34th Street in Manhattan will serve as a hub for delivery of Prime Now orders.

“Prime members in Manhattan are going to love this service and we cannot wait to roll out Prime Now to additional cities in 2015,” Dave Clark, SVP of worldwide operations, said in a statement.
 

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