Amazon 30-Minute Grocery Delivery Expands to UK, India and US

What happened

Amazon Now, Amazon's ultra-fast delivery service, has been rolling out across several countries at the same time. It brings thousands of groceries and household essentials to customers in about 30 minutes or less. The latest launch came in early October, when the service reached Birmingham through two new dark stores. Birmingham is Amazon Now's third UK city. The service started in January around Southwark in London and reached Manchester in July.11 Amazon says this is the fastest delivery it has ever offered in the UK, and it puts the company level with Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats, which have all moved into grocery.11 UK Prime members pay from £1.99 per order and non-members pay £3.99. Any order under £15 carries an extra £2 fee.11

The UK launch is one part of a much bigger push. In India, Amazon Now has grown to more than 120 cities, doubling its coverage in two weeks ahead of the festive shopping season.6 Orders there run through a network of almost 800 micro-fulfilment and urban fulfilment centres.10 In the United States, the service moved from pilots in Seattle and Philadelphia to wide availability in Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Philadelphia and Seattle. Amazon announced in May that it would expand to Austin, Denver, Houston, Minneapolis, Oklahoma City, Orlando and Phoenix.4 The company said it wanted the service to reach "tens of millions" of US customers by the end of 2026.1

How the model works

The service depends on location. Amazon fills Amazon Now orders from small micro-fulfilment centres, usually called dark stores, of roughly 5,000 to 10,000 square feet. They sit much closer to homes than Amazon's huge warehouses near highways.1 The Associated Press describes them as about the size of a CVS drugstore, stocking around 3,500 products: fresh produce, meat, beer where allowed, diapers, over-the-counter medicine, cleaning supplies and electronics.3 A few workers pick orders by hand from the shelves. Unlike Amazon's large fulfilment centres, the Now hubs do not use robots.35 Orders go out with Amazon Flex gig drivers, who use their own cars.1 In most areas the service runs 24 hours a day.1

What sells shows what the service is really for. Amazon says early top sellers in the US included soap, toothpaste, mouthwash, toilet plungers, bananas, limes and wireless earbuds.3 These are emergency and top-up purchases, not the weekly shop. Newsweek describes Amazon's aim as becoming the shopper's "default emergency store."22

US prices are higher than UK prices. Prime members pay $3.99 per order and non-members pay $13.99. Orders under $15 add $1.99 for Prime members and $3.99 for everyone else.17 Not every outlet reported the small-basket fee the same way: an AP-syndicated version described a single $1.99 fee for orders under $15.28 The basic structure is the same in all the reports. Amazon is using Prime to make speed cheaper for members, a familiar way to make the membership harder to give up. CNBC's investor-focused analysis says this directly, calling the service a way to make Prime "indispensable."26

Why Amazon is pushing so hard

The reporting agrees on the main reason: groceries and everyday essentials are now central to how Amazon plans to grow its retail business. Amazon says its grocery business produced $150 billion in gross sales in 2025, which it says makes it the second-largest grocer in the US. That figure includes nonperishable goods that traditional grocers would not count.216 CEO Andy Jassy has said that perishables made up nine of the ten most-ordered same-day items, and that shoppers who buy perishables add almost three times as many items and spend more than 80% more.26 Morgan Stanley analysts see Amazon Now as one more step toward winning a share of a "still relatively untapped" offline grocery market they put at $1.7 trillion.26

The early numbers are strong where Amazon has released them. In India, Amazon Now has passed $1 billion in annualised gross sales, and the company says orders have doubled every quarter.12 Jassy has said Prime members there shop three times as often once they start using the service.5 Amazon also said Amazon Now usage grew 60% worldwide in the second quarter.24 These are company figures, and Amazon has not reported profitability for the business.

The real target: Walmart's stores

The most important point in the coverage is not delivery speed. It is property and location. Walmart says it can reach 95% of US households in under three hours, using its stores as local fulfilment hubs.16 Walmart offers 30-minute-or-less delivery in 38 US markets. Its fast-delivery volume rose 48% in its latest quarter, and fee-based fast deliveries made up a record 37% of orders filled from stores.27 Quartz argues that stores, once seen as a weakness against Amazon, now let traditional retailers compete in the delivery race Amazon started.27

Amazon's response, according to internal documents reported by Business Insider and summarised by the Daily Mail, is a plan called Project Mercury. It would grow Amazon's same-day fulfilment network from about 85 sites to more than 1,000 by 2031. The goal is to put one within a 10-mile radius of 80% of Prime subscribers.16 The documents reportedly budget $6.8 billion for US same-day capacity across 2026 and 2027. An Amazon spokesperson said the projections are preliminary and subject to significant revision.16

In short, Amazon Now is the visible part of a long-term effort to build a store network without building stores. Analysts disagree on how well that is working. Wells Fargo still calls Walmart the "early leader" in rapid delivery. It argues that Amazon's range of products "falls well short" of store-based grocers like Kroger and Albertsons, while noting Amazon's round-the-clock service as an advantage.26 Morgan Stanley expects a growing product range to drive more use and add competition for other online grocers.26 The two views can both be true. Amazon has the speed, but its stores are still small.

Delivery apps and the gig platforms

Amazon Now also competes with Instacart, DoorDash and Uber Eats. Retail analyst Bruce Winder says these platforms lack Amazon's supply-chain scale.3 The platforms disagree. DoorDash says it offers more than half a million grocery and retail items in under an hour by partnering with grocers instead of replacing them.3 DoorDash's CEO has said those partnerships give it an advantage over Amazon.29 That approach is spreading: Costco has just expanded delivery through both DoorDash and Uber Eats.29

US shoppers appear willing to use fast grocery delivery. A Coresight survey found that 37.9% of online grocery shoppers placed most or nearly all of their orders through rapid delivery in the past year.23 But a McKinsey survey cited by Axios found more than 95% of shoppers prefer free standard delivery to paying for speed.25 Both findings can hold together. Fast delivery is a habit for some purchases, not a general replacement for cheaper, slower delivery.

India: playing catch-up

India shows Amazon in an unusual position: it is behind. Amazon has about 6.2% of India's quick commerce market. Blinkit, Swiggy and Zepto together hold 77% and run more than 4,500 stores.20 Reuters reports that Amazon plans to invest $3 billion in Indian quick commerce by 2030, with a target of about 1,300 stores by next April, up from about 750. Amazon has not commented on those figures.20 Its strategy there is narrower than its rivals'. It concentrates on daily essentials that people buy again and again, and avoids one-off purchases like iPhones.20 Amazon says it wants to reach more than 300 Indian cities.6

The risks

The reporting is also clear about the downside. Most of the venture-funded 10-to-15-minute grocery startups of the pandemic era failed under high costs and weak customer loyalty.3 Getir has pulled out of the US and several European markets.19 Forrester's Sucharita Kodali says Amazon will need many nearby orders arriving at the same time for 30-minute delivery to pay off.3 Gartner's Brad Jashinsky points to Domino's abandoned "30 minutes or less" guarantee as a cautionary example.3 Amazon's own history is mixed as well. Prime Now was folded into the main Amazon app in 2021, and Amazon Today was shut down in late 2024.5

Amazon has taken some of these lessons on board. It gives no time guarantee, and its transportation chief says neither warehouse staff nor gig drivers are being rushed.3 That may protect workers, but it also means "30 minutes" is a goal, not a promise.

The takeaway

In our view, this is a lasting change in strategy, not a pilot that could quietly end like Prime Now. Amazon Now is now inside the main app, launching in several countries at once, and backed by large capital plans. It is aimed at the store visits that once belonged to Walmart, CVS and the corner shop. Whether it makes money is still the open question, and Amazon has not answered it publicly. But quick commerce is now a contest among large incumbents with deep pockets, not startups, and Amazon is investing in nearby stock to compete.