Amazon Offers Same Day Delivery In NYC

Interesting: Amazon is offering same-day delivery for certain items—and for an additional fee (Amazon Prime members would pay $6; non-Prime members would pay $15)—in NYC and six other cities. The Bits blog reminds us of the olden days of Kozmo.com and Urbanfetch: "Of course, those earlier players did not have sustainable business models: Urbanfetch and Kozmo were saddled with huge delivery costs (paying a fleet of bike messengers) that they tried to offset with higher-margin products (DVD players and video-game consoles), but it didn’t work—most people just ordered a pint of Cherry Garcia and a pack of Marlboros."

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By Jen Chung in News on October 15, 2009 1:20 PM

Comments [rss]

Steven

Dumb idea. This would work nicely if Amazon didn't charge sales tax in NY.

uptownnyc

I'd think this would make it more difficult for them to make their case against the Amazon tax NY imposes even though the crux of that debate was related to affiliates.

Wza

Cool!

Jish

Worth mentioning that www.maxdelivery.com offers a "Kozmo-type" service as well. We use it pretty often - wish they did Blu-ray rentals...

ohgoodgolly

I was just reminiscing about Kozmo a few days ago. So much better than Netflix! I was incredibly bummed when they shut down - I would have happily paid a yearly subscription fee or per-delivery charge if it would have helped keep them afloat. However, $15 a pop for the Amazon service seems way too excessive. If I need a book that bad I'll walk to the goddamn library.