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Amazon is retiring Prime Now and moving deliveries into its core app
The service's standalone app and website will shut by the end of this year.
Amazon is retiring the dedicated app and website for Prime Now and making the expedited deliveries available through the main Amazon app and site. The change will be implemented worldwide by the end of the year, the company said in an announcement.
Before then, Amazon is moving its third-party partners and local stores that were offered through Prime Now over to the main app and site, including the Bartell's pharmacy in Seattle, the Leeds branch of UK supermarket Morrisons and the Monoprix department store in Paris.
The subtle change is part of Amazon's broader efforts to build an all-in-one offering on Amazon.com and its companion mobile app. Two-hour grocery deliveries through Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market have been available on Amazon since 2019. In India, the online retailer has even added a free video service to the Amazon app on Android (the company operates a seperate ad-supported platform, called IMDb TV, in the US).
In Amazon's words, the goal is to provide a single destination for customers that makes the shopping experience more "convenient" and "seamless."
Amazon launched Prime Now in 2014 as a way to provide Prime members with even faster deliveries, within one to two hours, on items including household essentials, groceries, books and toys. Initially, the service was limited to Manhattan, New York, but Amazon has since expanded it to 5,000 towns and cities and made two-hour deliveries free, according to CNBC. Whole Foods has been key to its growth, with Amazon reportedly enlarging the grocery chain's footprint to put more people in reach of faster deliveries.
