Amazon’s Whole Foods grocery delivery is hitting select markets beginning today. For those that live in the Prime Neighborhoods in Austin, Dallas, Cincinnati, or or Virginia Beach, Amazon will now deliver grocery orders from Whole Foods within two hours of the order being placed as long as the orders are at least $35. This means consumers even in the supported neighborhoods won’t be able to place an order for just a few small items.
Delivery will include everything from seafood and meats to fresh produce and other everyday items like paper towels, bottled water, tea, coffee and just about anything else you’d be able to get if you were to physically visit a Whole Foods location. Shopping can be done two different ways – via the Prime Now app or the Prime Now website, and this includes payment and inserting delivery details. Two-hour delivery is completely free as it is part of the Prime Now service that customers get when they’re signed up as an Amazon Prime member, but those who may need their deliveries a little bit faster are able to pay $7.99 to have the groceries delivered within an hour instead.
Amazon notes that the hours of operation for Whole Foods grocery delivery more or less spans the entire day and are seemingly the same hours of operation as Whole Foods marketplaces, allowing consumers to shop and place orders for delivery from eight in the morning to ten at night, meaning you won’t have to be in a rush to get the orders in if receiving the delivery isn’t a pressing matter. Though the Whole Foods delivery is only available in the above-mentioned markets, those cities aren’t the only cities where Amazon offers the Prime Now delivery service, so it shouldn’t be too long before Amazon starts to offer grocery delivery from Whole Foods to other cities where Whole Foods is actually present, such as Portland, or even Amazon’s own hometown of Seattle. Grocery delivery from Whole Foods through Prime Now was an eventual result coming from the purchase of Whole Foods by Amazon that was completed last year, which also saw Amazon offer special discounts on prices on certain items in Whole Foods grocery stores for Prime members.