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Amazon permanently shuts down Prime Pantry

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Re: Amazon permanently shuts down Prime Pantry

#11

Post by kube-system »

cheriot wrote: post #7

It was an odd market niche. Only dry packaged groceries so I couldn't go "grocery shopping", but also could not be combined with my Fresh order. The limited selection and lack of a price benefit meant it wasn't worth the hassle of another order.

There were a lot of internet grocery stores that sold nonperishables in the days before Instacart. It was useful for people in rural locations that weren’t very mobile... and still is for the people who don’t live where fresh grocery delivery is available.

Re: Amazon permanently shuts down Prime Pantry

#12

Post by stonogo »

bootlooped wrote: post #8

I had said many times Amazon had too many ways to order groceries: 1. Amazon.com 2. Amazon Prime Pantry 3. Amazon Fresh 4. Whole Foods via Amazon Prime Now 5. Amazon items via Amazon Prime Now* *I never figured out what exactly this was. Was it just Amazon.com listing reproduced in the Prime Now app? Was it Amazon Fresh and/or Prime Pantry items? Was it some other set of items?

Amazon Prime Now is basically direct courier delivery from the closest warehouse to your house. the app only presented things that were readily available in your area.

Re: Amazon permanently shuts down Prime Pantry

#13

Post by DennisP »

bootlooped wrote: post #8

I had said many times Amazon had too many ways to order groceries: 1. Amazon.com 2. Amazon Prime Pantry 3. Amazon Fresh 4. Whole Foods via Amazon Prime Now 5. Amazon items via Amazon Prime Now* *I never figured out what exactly this was. Was it just Amazon.com listing reproduced in the Prime Now app? Was it Amazon Fresh and/or Prime Pantry items? Was it some other set of items?

Exactly. I use Prime all the time but never have sorted out the grocery stuff, so I use Instacart.

I did once try something that iirc was Pantry. I searched for Pantry items, they mixed in a bunch of stuff that wasn't Pantry but wasn't obvious about that, and after I filled my shopping cart with various items they wanted to charge me lots of extra shipping. So I backed out and didn't bother with it anymore.

Re: Amazon permanently shuts down Prime Pantry

#14

Post by egonschiele »

The move makes sense. In theory Prime Pantry is a good idea, since it reduces the cost of shipping that we're all paying as consumers on "free" shipping items. But the logistics of finding enough stuff to fill the box went against the idea of Amazon, which was think of a thing and order it immediately. I'm not sure if others were organized enough to order their paper towels/soap/toilet paper etc at the same time, but I certainly wasn't.

Re: Amazon permanently shuts down Prime Pantry

#15

Post by tshaddox »

stonogo wrote: post #12
bootlooped wrote: post #8

I had said many times Amazon had too many ways to order groceries: 1. Amazon.com 2. Amazon Prime Pantry 3. Amazon Fresh 4. Whole Foods via Amazon Prime Now 5. Amazon items via Amazon Prime Now* *I never figured out what exactly this was. Was it just Amazon.com listing reproduced in the Prime Now app? Was it Amazon Fresh and/or Prime Pantry items? Was it some other set of items?

Amazon Prime Now is basically direct courier delivery from the closest warehouse to your house. the app only presented things that were readily available in your area.

My understanding was that it was distinct inventory at a distinct warehouse optimized for same-day fulfillment. At least in SF years ago, they had cold items like eggs and ice cream (before the Whole Foods merger).

Re: Amazon permanently shuts down Prime Pantry

#18

Post by mjevans »

kube-system wrote: post #11
cheriot wrote: post #7

It was an odd market niche. Only dry packaged groceries so I couldn't go "grocery shopping", but also could not be combined with my Fresh order. The limited selection and lack of a price benefit meant it wasn't worth the hassle of another order.

There were a lot of internet grocery stores that sold nonperishables in the days before Instacart. It was useful for people in rural locations that weren’t very mobile... and still is for the people who don’t live where fresh grocery delivery is available.

It might be better for society to help the orderly shutdown and consolidation of those areas towards communities dense enough to have a functional local economy.

This would integrate well with new New Deal style programs where people are helped to migrate to jobs that enrich society and those working; and possibly recapture the former community areas as nature reserves or other non-housing lands.

Re: Amazon permanently shuts down Prime Pantry

#19

Post by rvn1045 »

This was just another experiment for Amazon. Shutting it down just means it didn't work out for whatever reason but they'll probably try a similar concept again with a few twists. There are so many 'businesses' under Amazon and many of them compete with each other. Often times this doesn't make sense to the end consumer but these are all just experiments being run to see what kinds of businesses might work.

Re: Amazon permanently shuts down Prime Pantry

#20

Post by jonas21 »

sigjuice wrote: post #5

Good riddance. Most people just want to buy mundane household items without having to solve knapsack problems.

I think it was a product from a different era. When Prime Pantry launched, Amazon hadn't acquired Whole Foods, and they didn't have a story for last-mile delivery yet.

So they had to ship your order from a warehouse, and the only way to do that profitably on low-margin grocery items was to batch them up into a large order in a box of uniform dimensions.

The fact that they no longer need to do this speaks to how far Amazon's logistics have come over the last 7 years.

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