Amazon has always spared no effort and brainstormed extensively on how to improve customer experience and practice the principle of "user first". According to foreign media reports, Amazon has launched the "Instant Pickup" service in the United States to address the pain points of long delivery times for daily and fresh products purchased online, aiming to shorten the time from ordering to picking up.

How is the Instant Pickup service generated?

According to insiders, since Amazon acquired Whole Foods Supermarket for $13.7 billion in June this year, they have realized that it is difficult to transfer sales of fresh products from offline to online. Moreover, Amazon staff have learned through surveys that many college students nowadays are unwilling to queue up at convenience stores when purchasing some daily necessities and fresh products, and do not like to spend too much time with convenience store staff. Instead, they tend to rely more on smartphones to handle all of this. Therefore, Amazon has launched the "Instant Pickup" pickup point service at five universities, including the University of California, Berkeley.

Amazon will further promote the Instant Pickup service

Considering that convenient and thoughtful services will never be rejected by people, Amazon plans to promote the Instant Pickup service to a large number of non university areas, such as public places such as Lincoln Park in Chicago, by the end of the year.

In fact, as early as 2015, Amazon began offering pickup point services in the United States. As of now, it has opened a total of 22 pickup points in the United States, mainly for the convenience of consumers picking up goods on the same day. The "instant pickup" service launched by Amazon this time will rely on these pickup points and will be widely promoted in Berkeley, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Columbus, Ohio, and other places.

Customers can pick up the goods in just two minutes through Instant Pickup

Some people believe that the Instant Pickup service is a further expansion of Amazon's express delivery service. Can Amazon Student Program Director Li Puli? Ripley MacDonald, on the other hand, stated that Amazon did not have any experience to draw on in the design process of Instant Pickup. Instant Pickup is designed entirely based on student feedback.

After Amazon promoted the Instant Pickup service, customers only need to use Amazon's mobile application to select hundreds of quick selling small items at the pickup point, including student supplies, snacks and beverages, phone cases, chargers, and more. Amazon employees will deliver the goods to the locker within two minutes after receiving the order, while customers can go to the locker and scan the QR code to retrieve the goods from the locker. The entire process only takes 2 minutes and there is no need to queue or communicate with others. This convenient service that shortens pick-up time has been widely recognized by students.

Is the Instant Pickup service a new layout for Amazon to enter offline retail?

Compared to physical retailers, delivery time has always been a major pain point for Amazon to enter offline retail from e-commerce. There are relevant media comments that the Instant Pickup service is the latest step for Amazon to enter new retail after opening physical bookstores and acquiring whole food supermarkets.

Those who have some knowledge of Amazon know that Amazon is constantly making efforts to shorten customer pickup time. From Prime Now to Amazon Fresh Pickup, you can receive goods within 15 minutes, and then to today's Instant Pickup service, you can pick them up within two minutes. Amazon has been making various attempts.

Morningstar analysts say that the Instant Pickup service is a natural extension of Amazon's larger foray into the grocery market, and 'instant pickup' can attract more consumers for small purchases.