Six years after the launch of Amazon Pantry, Amazon stopped the popular service.
Originally known as Prime Pantry, the option initially charged customers in the continental United States a flat fee of $ 5.99 for shipping a box that could be filled with up to 45 pounds of non-perishable food and household products.
It started out as an alternative to the traditional supermarket, but started to compete with other Amazon offerings – Jeff Bezos-owned company acquired Whole Foods and launched its own Amazon Fresh supermarkets.
Amazon still sells canned goods, pasta, cereals, detergents and other basic products through Prime’s main website.
Scroll down to the video
Amazon Pantry launched in 2014, allowing customers to pay a $ 5 flat shipping fee for up to £ 45 of essential household items and non-perishable food. A notice on the Amazon website indicates that the service has been discontinued
After an implementation in the United States, the service was made available in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, India and the United Kingdom, where the items were supplied by the British supermarket chain Morrisons.
At the time, many of Pantry’s items were not available on Amazon’s main site because they were individually sized, not in bulk.
A limited and ever-changing variety of products was available, including, according to Amazon, ‘soft drinks and bottled water, a new variety of paper and laundry products in popular packaging, individual boxes of breakfast cereal, potato chips, convenience- scaled personal care products and more. ‘
Since then, however, it has become increasingly aggressive in the field of the food sector, both online and physical.
In 2018, Amazon transformed the Pantry program into a $ 5 monthly subscription service. In March, Amazon briefly suspended the Pantry service, while the coronavirus pandemic congested supply chains and limited the number of workers available to order. of stock
Amazon bought Whole Foods in 2017 for $ 13.7 billion, giving it almost 450 physical locations.
Now it offers Whole Foods delivery service to Amazon Prime members in more than 2,000 U.S. cities.
In 2018, Amazon transformed the Pantry program into a $ 5 monthly subscription service that allowed Prime members an unlimited number of orders over $ 40.
The flat fee – increased to $ 8 – would be added to orders under $ 40 or from non-Pantry members.
The e-commerce giant also opened the first Amazon Go convenience store in 2018, allowing customers to buy the basics without having to physically pay at the cash register.
Since the launch of Amazon Pantry as Prime Pantry in 2014, Amazon has increased its share in the food industry by buying Whole Foods, launching cashless Amazon Go convenience stores and Amazon Fresh supermarkets
The first Amazon Fresh brand supermarket opened in Los Angeles in 2019.
Industry experts say the number of products offered by Pantry has started to decline in recent years.
Now, on Amazon’s main website, a notice indicates that Amazon Pantry has been ‘discontinued’.
A message encouraging customers to ‘buy Pantry’s bestsellers along with other essential foods and items for the home’ links to the main category ‘Edible and gourmet foods’.
The coronavirus pandemic has increased demand for online grocery services like Pantry, Amazon Fresh, Fresh Direct and Peapod.
In March, the pantry service was briefly suspended as supply chains narrowed and warehouses closed.
“Due to the high volume of orders, Pantry is not currently accepting new orders,” notes the company.
‘This means that items listed as’ Pantry Shipped and Sold’ cannot be added to your cart. We apologize for this inconvenience and are working with our partners to get these items back in stock as soon as possible. ‘
A month later, the company placed new customers on a waiting list to prioritize existing members.
Amazon said its online supermarket ordering capacity increased by more than 60% during the first weeks of the outbreak.
But many buyers looking to buy groceries from the Seattle-based company found that they could not place orders due to a lack of available delivery slots.