Amazon largesse Amazon Dash for delivery of groceries, household items
An Amazon Fresh delivery van moves down Pico Bloulevard in Los Angeles, California, June 14, 2013.
Amazon.com Inc from its barrio propelled into action a new product named Amazon Dash on Friday that allows the user to add groceries and household goods to their shopping lists using the company’s AmazonFresh service.
Technicalities here zeroed in, a black-and-white hand-held wand-shaped remote-control features a microphone, speaker besides a bar-code reader and links directly to the user’s AmazonFresh account.
Nonetheless, the device is available only for users of the AmazonFresh which currently operates exclusively in Southern California, San Francisco and Seattle. The device from its part is free during the trial period, as stated by the product’s website.
All the same, signing up for Amazon Dash is by invitation only while the AmazonFresh service is currently available only in Southern California, San Francisco and Seattle.
The online retailer has been steadily expanding towards electronics manufacturing businesses, starting with the Kindle e-reader which was first launched in 2007, and the Fire TV streaming set-top box announced earlier this week, even as it seeks new ways to energize a gradually slowing core retail business.
Amazon from its quarter has been steadily expanding its “Fresh” online grocery business, targeting one of the largest retail sectors yet to be upended by online commerce. The company has strategies to launch AmazonFresh, which has operated in Seattle for years, in roughly 20 urban areas in fiscal 2014, plus some outside the United States.
A efficacious foray cleaved into the groceries space could also aid underwrite the development of a broad-based delivery service employing Amazon trucks to deliver directly to homes, which could have implications for UPS, FedEx in addition to other package delivery companies that currently ship Amazon goods.
Still, groceries have proven to be one of the most difficult sectors for online retailers to be able to manage successfully. One of the most richly-funded start-ups of the dot-com era, Webvan, was a spectacular failure as the cost of developing the warehouse and delivery infrastructure proved overwhelming.
Amazon from its part was unavailable for comment as regards the public availability of the device.
