The U.S. Postal Service is already delivering groceries for Amazon in San Francisco, and has now received an OK to extend the experiment for two years, Internet Retailer reported.
According to a USPS proposal, which was approved on Thursday (Oct. 23) by the Postal Regulatory Commission, some San Francisco postal facilities have been receiving pre-sorted grocery deliveries from an unnamed retailer between 1:30 and 2:30 a.m. Carriers have been making the deliveries to customers’ doors in 38 ZIP codes between 3 and 7 a.m.
The retailer has been separately identified by media outlets as Amazon. An average of 160 Amazon-branded totes, some of them containing freezer packs to keep perishables fresh, have been delivered per day in the initial tests.
The USPS filing did not make public how much it will charge for the delivery service, which it called “Customized Delivery” in its filing. But the commission said the charges were in the same range as other area grocery delivery fees, between $3.99 and $15.99. The commission also ruled that, at least initially, revenue from the experiment will be limited to $10 million a year.
In addition, the commission said the USPS would have to file again if it wants to expand the test beyond San Francisco. The USPS has already indicated it would like to expand the test to other cities, including Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Portland, Ore.
