Prime Now isn’t the only thing Amazon is cooking up. Some of the guys over at GeekWire are reporting that the Prime Now drivers they’ve seen zipping around Seattle might also be picking up restaurant orders for Amazon employees–a new venture Amazon appears to be testing in the company’s hometown.
Tell Tale Signs
Amazon has been known to test several various experiments in the company’s hometown of Seattle, WA., but even Seattle natives will be disappointed to find that the company is only testing this service with its employees at the moment. GeekWire reached out to some of the Prime Now deliveries drivers that they’ve seen around town, and they confirmed that Amazon has given them instructions on exactly how to make a restaurant pickup from participating restaurants.
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This Isn’t Amazon’s First Rodeo
Amazon isn’t running completely blind with this new initiative, however. The company has actually done a lot of experimenting in the restaurant delivery business. The Amazon Local app allowed Seattle natives to order carryout, although Amazon wouldn’t directly send its drivers to go out and deliver the food to users.
Another Amazon app, AmazonFresh, is a grocery delivery service that allowed users to order pre-made meals that could be delivered to them, and then heated up to eat. There is even another project in New York City that lets users order meals from a few participating restaurants and bakeries.
Rough Competition
Unfortunately for Amazon, there is plenty of competition when it comes to food delivery. GeekWire mentioned Peach and Grubhub, in particular, as being two prominent delivery services just in Seattle alone. So, it will be interesting to see how the e-commerce giant can compete in a world that is already pretty well established.
GeekWire tried to reach out to one of the participating Prime Now delivery restaurants to get some more information on how exactly the process worked. The employees of the restaurant, however, couldn’t really give a direct answer. According to them, the project was so new that they had only handled one order prior, and they weren’t entirely sure what the process was themselves.
Like most Amazon dreams, there is a high chance that people outside of Seattle will never see a service actually come to fruition, and most people might have better luck finding local food delivery services anyway. Either way, one-hour food deliveries from Amazon could be dangerous for weight scales everywhere.
