Amazon is to start delivering meals from restaurants to customers in some parts of London.
In a move that will undoubtedly cause concern among Just Eat, Deliveroo, and UberEats, the launch of the Amazon Restaurants service will initially be rolled out to 21 London postcodes within an hour.
The service will be available for free for Amazon Prime customers and already more than 180 restaurants have signed up to it, including pizza chain Strada, Michelin starred Benares.
This isn’t the company’s first foray into this area as it already runs similar services in 12 US cities, including New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle.
The service will be available to customers from the Amazon Prime Now app, this will show them which restaurants offer food in their area and will also track the delivery in transit.
Customers must spend £15 in order to qualify for free delivery and Amazon will use “delivery service providers” to bring the food. This delivery method could be different from the likes of Uber and Deliveroo, both of which use cyclists and moped riders.
The company has not said which delivery service providers will be used.
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The only stumbling block for customers could be the necessity to be an Amazon Prime member in order to use the service. The company currently charges £79 a year for Prime while UberEats, Deliveroo, and Just Eat don’t charge any membership.
Al Wilkinson, UK head of Amazon Restaurants at Amazon, said: "London offers some of the best cuisine from around the world, so we’re delighted that Amazon Prime customers can now enjoy food from their favourite restaurants via Amazon’s ultra-fast Prime Now service."
Amazon may have a way to go before it can catch up with the competitors, most of who target delivery times of around 30 minutes, while Amazon said that all deliveries will be completed in less than an hour.
The locations it will be available in will be: the West End, Westminster, Pimlico, Victoria, Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, Bow, Clapton, Homerton, Islington, Stoke Newington, Stamford Hill, Kensignton and Chelsea, Southwark, Lambeth, Vauxhall, and Kennington.
