Amazon stops accepting new online grocery customers amid surging demand

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Amazon will start to place new grocery supply clients on a wait record and curtail procuring hours at some Whole Foods shops to prioritize orders from present clients shopping for meals on-line in the course of the coronavirus outbreak, the corporate stated on Sunday.

Many buyers just lately in search of to buy groceries from the Seattle-based ​e-commerce firm discovered they may not place orders resulting from a scarcity of obtainable supply slots. Amazon stated it must relegate all new on-line grocery clients to a wait record beginning Monday whereas engaged on including capability every week.

In latest weeks, it elevated the variety of Whole Foods shops providing grocery pickup ​to greater than 150 places, up from 80 beforehand.

Amazon ​additionally plans to shorten some Whole Foods shops’ hours for the general public so its workers can extra shortly fulfill on-line grocery orders, the corporate stated.

The strikes illustrates how the world’s largest on-line retailer, which confirmed its ambition to enter the grocery business by buying Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in August 2017, is now leveraging its presence each on-line and in bodily shops to deal with excessive demand from customers who’re caught consuming at house, with many restaurant eating rooms closed to the general public.

Amazon provides grocery supply providers Amazon Fresh and Amazon Prime Now from its personal warehouses and Whole Foods shops. It usually touts ultra-fast supply inside hours, ​with buyers in a position to decide on a supply window. Last month, Amazon quickly suspended the Prime Pantry supply service, which sells non-perishable groceries.

Amazon stated its on-line grocery order capability has elevated by greater than 60% in the course of the outbreak. Some netizens who stated they used Amazon Prime, its $119-a-year subscription service for U.S. buyers, have however complained on social media concerning the shortage of supply home windows.

The firm stated it’s hiring extra employees to develop capability and that it plans to launch a brand new function that may assist clients safe a digital “place in line” to distribute the supply home windows on a primary come, first served foundation. It additionally supplied larger pay to encourage its warehouse employees to work for its grocery supply service.

Currently, Amazon runs 487 Whole Foods shops within the United States. These shops have been limiting the variety of clients allowed directly, and Amazon has stated it conducts each day worker temperature checks and sends masks and gloves to guard employees.

The first retailer of Amazon’s much-anticipated new grocery chain, which is scheduled to open this 12 months in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, has been quickly transitioned right into a warehouse for on-line orders, the corporate stated.

Still, some workers at Whole Foods and Amazon warehouses have protested the corporate is just not doing sufficient to guard them, in demonstrations that gained consideration from lawmakers and unions. Over 50 Amazon achievement facilities and several other Whole Foods shops had confirmed COVID-19 instances, in line with a number of stories.

“We nonetheless count on the mix of restricted capability resulting from social distancing and buyer demand will proceed to make discovering accessible supply home windows difficult for patrons,” Stephenie Landry, vp of Grocery at Amazon, wrote in a blogpost. “If you’ll be able to achieve this safely, we kindly encourage our clients who can to buy in-person.”

The submit Amazon stops accepting new on-line grocery clients amid surging demand appeared first on The Himalayan Times.

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