8/25/15

Amazon Quietly Launches Same-Day Beer, Wine Delivery In Seattle

When you’re hosting a party and notice that the alcoholic beverages are running a little low, you might momentarily panic: who in their right mind wants to leave such a great shindig to go on a beer run? No one, that’s who. And now, with the long-awaited addition of alcohol delivery to Amazon’s one- or two-hour Prime Now service, no one has to… unless you live outside of Seattle, in which case you still have to go to the store.

When Amazon announced the launch of its expedited delivery program in Seattle today, the company quietly revealed the newly expanded service would offer something new: alcohol delivery.

Instead of making a big to-do about adding beer and wine delivery to Prime Now for the first time in the U.S., Amazon stealthily snuck a few mentions of the beverages into a statement about the expanded services.

“Residents of Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond and Kirkland can now get one-hour delivery on tens of thousands of items like paper towels, wine, beer, chilled and frozen items like milk and ice cream, televisions and Kindle devices,” the company said in its announcement.

Rumors have swirled for weeks that the e-commerce giant would rollout beer, wine and liquor delivery in Seattle after it was reported that the company had applied for liquor licenses for three warehouse sites in the area.

A spokesperson for Amazon tells Re/Code that it will evaluate customers use of the alcohol delivery service, but plan to “continue to expand it.” However, the company did not specify what cities might expect boozy deliveries in the future.

Including alcohol delivery is a first for the company’s Prime Now operations in the U.S. Amazon’s Prime Now service in the U.K. already offers such deliveries.

As with all previous Prime Now rollouts, customers in Seattle must be members of Amazon’s $99/year Prime service to receive deliveries in either two hours for free or one hour for $7.99.

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