Having to wait in line to buy groceries may be a thing of the past with a drive-through window soon!
Amazon customers tired of waiting for their orders to arrive may soon be able to bypass shipping all together.
The company has plans to build its first brick-and-mortar, drive-through grocery store location in Sunnyvale, Calif., according to the Silicone Valley Business Journal.
While full details of the concept store are not readily available, the Journal says a real estate developer has filed plans for an 11,600-square-foot building, complete with a grocery pickup location. Amazon, the publication says, is the likely tenant.
A Logical Step for Amazon
With its AmazonFresh, same- and next-day grocery delivery service, and the creation of the Amazon Pantry, analysts say a foray into the brick-and-mortar world makes sense for the retail giant.
Offering order-online convenience coupled with a drive-through pickup would also enable the company to tackle the obstacle it’s faced in relation to serving up perishable goods to consumers.
“Strategically, this gives them a way to avoid the cost and complexity of going to individual households, though that’s probably still on the docket,” Bill Bishop of the retail consultancy Brick Meets Click told the Journal.
A Position to Experiment
Amazon’s impressive growth over the past few years has enabled the company to tally up a worth that beats retail giant Walmart.
Sales in its second quarter earnings report, released in July, totaled $23.2 billion. That added up to a profit of roughly $92 million, which pays out 19 cents a share to holders analysts told to expect a loss of 14 cents a share.
The company’s continued success is showing on the stock market where the company’s $550 a share price following the earnings report’s release marked an all-time high.
A post-earnings trading frenzy drove the company’s value up some $40 billion higher than its pre-release worth, according to Buzzfeed. That enabled Amazon to add “more to its market capitalization than the entire value of eBay.”
As its worth and profits grow, Amazon is in a position to experiment. The drive-through grocery concept fits in with the company’s push to meet all purchasing needs consumers may have.
The store idea, however, isn’t the only innovation on the drawing board. British transport minister Robert Goodwill in March sat down with Amazon officials to discuss field testing the “Prime Air” delivery service that would use unmanned drones to place purchases in customers’ hands in 30 minutes or less.
How soon the grocery concept might materialize or whether Prime Air will take off remain unanswered questions. What is clear is that Amazon is out to raise the bar and keep raising it.
