Amazon Adds Delivery Fee For Prime Customers Ordering From Whole Foods

Amazon will be adding a delivery fee for customers on Prime shopping at Whole Foods, which shows the difficulty of the grocery market even for the world’s largest online retailer, according to Bloomberg.

Shoppers were recently informed of a $9.95 service delivery fee for deliveries starting Aug. 30, in the areas of Boston; Chicago; Manchester, New Hampshire; Portland, Maine; and Providence, Rhode Island, the report stated.

Grocery delivery has become a hot button space since the pandemic started, with many consumers switching to it as a mode of getting necessary items, rather than going out and risking exposure to the coronavirus.

Read more: Uber Eats Devours Ride-Share Business As Company Doubles Up On Groceries

Uber announced earlier this year that it would be expanding its own grocery delivery capacity. The expansion will see the service, already available in 400 U.S. cities and towns, increasing its presence by double, made possible through the company’s partnership with Albertsons.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the food delivery space is a ripe one for growth, with its value being around $50 billion.

“Eats on a volume basis is going to be bigger than Rides chiefly because with Eats, we’re going to go to grocery, and we’re going to the pharmacy, and we’re going to every single local commerce category,” he said. “It’s a bigger market.”

New companies are getting into the mix, too, PYMNTS reported. One of them is Jokr, a startup that boasts its ability to complete deliveries in less than 15 minutes.

Read more: No Joke: Jokr’s 15-Minute Grocery Delivery Out To Change Consumer Shopping Habits

In July, Jokr raised $170 million in a funding round, and the company is using the money to boost its services to new U.S. and European cities.

“What we’re excited about is the chance to change the concept of how people shop,” Jokr Co-Founder Zach Dennett said. “We’re seeing customer behavior is very sticky because once [they] stop planning ahead and [they] realize that [they] can just make the grocery choices [they] want the minute [they] want them, it’s kind of hard to go back to that planning.”