Amazon Announces Prime Now Expansion Across London

Amazon has announced a major expansion of its Prime Now delivery service across London as it looks to get more customers signed up.

From today, the number of postcodes eligible for one-hour Prime Now delivery has increased five-fold across the capital thanks to the opening of a new Amazon delivery station in Wimbledon, opening up the service to customers in Merton, Wandsworth and Sutton.

The company says that the number of postcodes eligible for a two-hour delivery window has almost trebled since the first day of the service in June 2015, with more than 20,000 products now available.

Speedy

“Millions more Londoners can now enjoy ultra-fast delivery,” said Christopher North, managing director of Amazon.co.uk.

“The service is proving very popular in the capital and we’ve seen high demand on everything from essentials like bottled water, coffee and nappies to the latest must-have popular items like games consoles, toys and sports equipment – all of which are available for delivery in less than 60 minutes.”

First introduced back in July, Amazon Prime Now is currently only available in London and Birmingham. The latter has also recently benefitted from the trial launch of the AmazonFresh service, which offers a choice of around 50 chilled grocery products as the company gears up for a UK-wide launch later this year.

The launch is Amazon’s latest expansion into the ecommerce market as it looks to stay top of the pile in what is becoming an increasingly crowded space.

Earlier this year, it was claimed that the company was planning to launch a new service that will employ normal people to courier goods. The “On My Way” program would offer ordinary people payment to drop off packages on their way home from work or school, with users able to sign up via a dedicated mobile app.

The company has also revealed it aims to move into drone delivery for its items, a program it hopes to launch within the next few years.

More details about its Prime Air scheme were revealed earlier this years, showing that the drones involved will be able to talk to each other to share information and update their routes in real time, determining if their flight paths and proposed landing areas are safe and free of obstacles (like people or dogs).

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