Amazon $AMZN’s push to get Prime deliveries out of warehouses and onto people’s doorsteps at breakneck speeds is continuing to pay off, the company says.
Amazon says that almost 60% of Prime member orders in the largest U.S. metro areas arrived within two days in March
Amazon $AMZN’s push to get Prime deliveries out of warehouses and onto people’s doorsteps at breakneck speeds is continuing to pay off, the company says.
After seeing record-breaking delivery speeds in 2023, the e-commerce giant said its first-quarter performance was even faster. In March, almost 60% of Prime member orders made in the 60 largest U.S. metropolitan areas arrived the same day or the following day, the company said Monday. And in London, Tokyo, and Toronto, 75% of deliveries came within two days.
In the first three months of 2024, Amazon delivered more than two billion items on the same day or the day after the order was placed. That compares with seven billion items arriving the same or the next day in all of 2023, with more than fourbillion in the U.S. and two billion in Europe.
Amid efforts to speed up deliveries, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is cutting costs. Over the last couple of years, Amazon has carried out mass layoffs across several of its units, including cutting hundreds of jobs at Amazon Web Services (AWS), Twitch, Audible, Buy with Prime, and Prime Video and MGM Studios. Since the end of 2022, Amazon has laid off more than 27,000 employees.
Jassy wrote in his annual letter to shareholders earlier this month that the company was not finished cutting costs, and had already identified several areas where it could reduce expenses “while also delivering faster for customers” in 2024.
“At our best, we’re not just customer obsessed, but also inventive, thinking several years out, learning like crazy, scrappy, delivering quickly, and operating like the world’s biggest start-up,” Jassy wrote.
🛒 Amazon announced last week that it is launching a new low-cost grocery delivery program for Prime members and customers that use government-sponsored EBT cards, which will be available to customers in more than 3,500 cities and towns across the U.S.
👾 Prime Air drone same-day deliveries will be available in Phoenix, Arizona starting later this year, the company announced last week. It also announced that it’s shuttering the service for customers in Northern California.
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