Amazon Expands ‘Prime Now’ One-Hour Delivery

Adding another city to its fast growing one-hour delivery network, Amazon has now expanded the service to Dallas, Texas.

In its first phase, Amazon is providing the service to select zip codes in the city and plans to soon expand to the surrounding areas.

“Our existing operations in Dallas-area that utilize advanced technology to fulfill customer orders are now home to a Prime Now hub that is fueling this super-fast delivery,” said Dave Clark, Amazon’s senior vice president of worldwide operations.

Amazon’s one-hour delivery service was first launched in New York City in December, last year. The service costs $7.99 for one-hour delivery and is provided free for two hour delivery.

Last week, the service was also expanded to select zip codes in Baltimore and Miami after the service gained popularity in Manhattan, New York.

“Customers in Manhattan and Brooklyn love Prime Now — it means you can skip a trip to the store and get the items you need delivered right to your door in under an hour,” said Clark. “Since launching, we’ve seen high demand on everything from essentials like water and paper towels to more surprising deliveries like getting a customer a hard-to-find, top-selling toy in 23 minutes — we are excited to continue delivering to customers in record-breaking time.”

Unlike NYC, where the service is available between 6 a.m. and midnight, Amazon Prime Now is currently serving Baltimore, Miami and Dallas between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m., seven days a week. The service can be availed by any Prime member by simply downloading and ordering products on the Amazon Prime Now app.

Amazon’s expansion of its one-hour delivery network comes at a time when the eCommerce giant has been lobbying to get federal approval to test and ultimately deliver using its drone delivery service called Prime Air. While the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) declined Amazon’s proposal last month, the company got approval to test drone delivery outdoors this week.

However, Amazon lambasted the FAA for taking a year-and-a-half to approve a drone model, which it says is already obsolete now. “Nowhere outside of the United States have we been required to wait more than one or two months to begin testing, and permission has been granted for operating a category of UAS, giving us room to experiment and rapidly perfect designs without being required to continually obtain new approvals for specific UAS vehicles,” said Paul Misner, Amazon’s vice president for Global Public Policy.