Amazon Brings Groceries into World of Beta

In an effort to expand its offerings, Amazon is the latest online shopping giant to step into the world of beta testing.

Amazon customers may soon be able to place an order of groceries online and pick the order up at a nearby location as soon as 15 minutes after ordering.

Amazon Fresh is the new service Amazon is beta testing with its employees in the Seattle neighborhoods of SoDo and Ballard.

Bridging the divide of the online and physical world, Amazon Fresh centers around the idea of a grocery pick-up service complete with brick-and-mortar locations.

• Customers can place their orders via a computer or a mobile device.
• Once customers have ordered their groceries, they drive to the nearest pick-up location at the designated pick-up time.
• Once they arrive, they pull into a spot and their groceries are loaded into the car for them.

This service would take the stress out of grocery shopping, adding ease and convenience to this everyday task.

Once Amazon Fresh moves out of the beta phase and all the kinks have been worked out, Amazon plans to roll out the service to all Amazon Prime members as part of their membership, adding another incentive to becoming a member.

This isn’t the first time Amazon has tested the idea of branching out into brick-and-mortar locations. The company is currently developing and testing Amazon Go, which is similar in design to Amazon Fresh. Amazon Go breaks the mold of a traditional brick-and-mortar convenience store by making it check-out free by electronically keeping track of the items purchased using sensors and cameras.

While increasing its offerings for customers and expanding its business, only time will tell what other innovations Amazon will bring to beta testing.

For more information about beta testing, visit Beta Breakers.