It looks as though Amazon is going to be experimenting with a new drive-up grocery concept tied to their online grocery ordering system, Amazon Fresh. So, rather than relying on a fleet of delivery trucks, the new concept would allow people to place orders online and then drive up at a distribution location to have their groceries brought to their car.
As the Business Times reports, though the company has yet to confirm it, a source has pointed to a piece of property in Sunnyvale as the likely first testing ground for Amazon's drive-thru grocery business. A developer has submitted plans for a 11,600-square-foot building and "grocery pickup area" at 777 Sunnyvale Saratoga Road, with the un-branded rendering of the concept above.
What this will mean for the grocery industry as a whole remains to be seen, and experts seem to say the whole industry is in flux now that consumers are more comfortable than they were in the first dot-com boom which saw the massive failure of services like WebVan with ordering groceries and everything else online.
And the new drive-up concept signals Amazon's desire to give customers multiple ways of getting immediate gratification with their orders, including their same-day delivery service, and Amazon Locker shipping option, which allows customers to pick up orders at lockers inside 7-11 and other retail locations.
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