Amazon Moves Prime Now To The Web

Amazon is expanding its rush delivery service from an app to the Internet at large.

Bloomberg reported on Friday (April 1) that the eCommerce giant plans to add its one- to two-hour delivery service, Prime Now — currently only available through a mobile application of the same name — to the Amazon website beginning in May.

The outlet notes that the addition of Prime Now to Amazon’s site will inherently widen the service’s reach to include a new base of customers who have not used Prime Now in app form, thus tapping into the three-quarters of the $96.2 billion in eCommerce transactions (according to research firm eMarketer) expected to come from sources other than mobile devices in the U.S. this year.

Concurrent with the scheduled expansion of Prime Now, shares Bloomberg, Amazon is in the process of reaching out to major brands in an attempt to sell ad space — with the promise of visibility reaching tens of millions of online consumers — related to the May launch.

The top tier of the packages that Amazon is offering, reports the outlet, is the premium “Launch Hero Package,” which would cost brands $500,000 for about two weeks of placement on the Amazon site, as well as email promotions sent to Amazon customers.

Bloomberg finds a correlation between the dedicated push by Amazon (which did not comment on the outlet’s story) for advertising sales surrounding the Prime Now expansion and the process of supermarkets charging premiums to brands for more visible placement in their locations, as well as being in step with Amazon’s overall recent efforts — including raising the minimum order amount for non-Prime members to utilize Prime Now — to generate subscriptions for Amazon Prime.