Amazon will be offering free two-hour delivery of Whole Foods products to Amazon Prime customers in select cities starting Thursday.
While the service is only available in Austin, Cincinnati, Dallas, and Virginia Beach for now, Amazon plans to expand the Whole Foods Prime Now service across the country over the course of the year.
How Much Does Whole Foods Delivery Cost?
Customers who pay for the yearly Amazon Prime subscription will be able to purchase a range of items that their local Whole Foods store stocks via Amazon or Prime Now. The items will then be delivered, for free, within two hours. For $7.99, customers can get one-hour delivery on orders over $35.
What Kind of Foods Will It Include?
Prime members will have access to thousands of items, from produce, to meat, dairy, and even fresh flowers, but not every item will be available for Prime Now delivery. Stephenie Landry, vice president of Prime Now, Amazon Fresh, and Amazon Restaurants told USA Today that “we might not have every last item that could be available in your local store but we’re going to have the vast majority of them.”
How Will the Food Be Delivered?
Once a customer has placed an order, pickers—not necessarily Whole Foods employees—will manually collect the items from a nearby Whole Foods store and put them in “appropriate packaging.”
The orders will then be given to Amazon Flex delivery drivers—contract drivers who, similar to Uber, drive their own cars but use Amazon’s routing app to make deliveries. These drivers also deliver items for Amazon, Prime Now, Amazon Fresh, and Amazon Restaurants.
The service will generally be available while the stores are open, broadly 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.