Amazon Prime Now

When Amazon Prime Now debuted in 2014, it granted Manhattan-based Prime subscribers a new level of shopping convenience with local delivery in under two hours with the Prime Now mobile app. Nearly two years later, Amazon Prime Now can also be accessed via a dedicated website, and it now lets you purchase goods in several metropolitan areas across the United States. With it, you get fast delivery and a few cool features that you don't get when you order from Amazon.com, but the convenience is counterbalanced by a limited catalog.

Similar Products

• Amazon Prime Now (for Android)

  

   

  at

  $99.00

  MSRP

• Amazon Music With Prime Music (for Android)

  

   

  at

  $0.00

  MSRP

• Amazon Prime Music

  

   

  at

  $99.00

  MSRP

• Amazon Video

  

   

  at

  $8.99

  MSRP

• Amazon Cloud Drive

  

   

  at

  $11.99

  MSRP

The Prime Directive
If you're not familiar with Amazon Prime Now, it's a perk you get with a $99-per-year Amazon Prime membership, and it promises to deliver your purchases from nearby Amazon warehouses within a two-hour window. In select areas, you can shorten the delivery time to one hour if you pay an additional $7.99. That's not too shabby if you're feeling lazy and don't want to leave the crib for a pint of ice cream. Speaking of eating, you can receive food orders directly from select shops such as Eataly and Gourmet Garage within a one-hour timeframe—at least if you're in Manhattan, which is where I tested the service. 

When it comes to lightning-quick food deliveries in my area, Amazon's biggest potential competitor is FreshDirect and its FoodKick app, which promises to deliver grub (including ingredients, complete meals, and booze) to Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Long Island City, within a one-hour period. We haven't tested FoodKick yet, but we're planning to soon. Restaurant delivery services like Seamless and ingredient subscription plays like BlueApron aren't quite direct Prime Now competitors, but they definitely appeal to the same users and no doubt compete for the same dollars.

Prime Now is also available in 24 other US metropolitan areas, including Atlanta, Brooklyn, Indianapolis, Manhattan, and the San Francisco Bay Area. You can key in your ZIP code to see if Prime Now is available in your area.

View All 5 Photos in Gallery

Prime Now taps the payment methods you set up in your Amazon account, but that's the only thing that carries over between it and any data you've got stored in your regular Amazon account. Amazon treats the regular and Prime Now stores as separate entities, so they don't share address books or purchases histories. It's unfortunate that these account elements aren't unified, as I'd like to see all of my purchases in one place. Prime Now also doesn't let you create wish lists, either, which is a bit of a bummer.

Prime Time
I tested the service by ordering black Dockers suspenders. The $14.40 price was under the Prime Now $15.00 minimum order requirement, so I tossed a pack of $1.87 Sour Patch candy into the shopping cart, too. During the checkout process, Amazon populated my telephone number and address into the appropriate fields, because I had previously placed an order when I tested the Amazon Prime Now Android app (there's also an iPhone app) more than a year ago. Thankfully, Amazon offers Prime Now in more locations, and a greater selection of goods, than it did in 2014.

However, although Amazon now boasts that it has more than 25,000 items available for Prime Now delivery, many product categories are still woefully thin, and feel more like proof-of-concept offerings than a serious catalog. For example, if you want to buy vinyl, there are only nine records available, including Kind of Blue, Random Access Memories, and Led Zeppelin I. On the other hand, other product categories, such as pet good, home decor, and video games, have surprisingly robust stock.

One cool feature is the option to leave a tip for the delivery person from within the site itself. Like Uber, Amazon discourages giving a tip by directly handing over cash, and this makes the package hand-off experience an even smoother experience.

After your order is submitted, Prime Now displays a map of your area and the delivery status. This comes in handy if you don't want to be glued to your seat as you await the delivery. I placed my order on a weekday at 2:46 p.m. and it arrived exactly 10 minutes later. That's because the package came from an Amazon warehouse located roughly 10 blocks from PCMag. That might be a bit of unfair advantage, but even so, the delivery time was much faster than I expected. 

Not Quite Prime
Amazon Prime Now remains a work in progress, and one that's developing at a slow pace. Two years after its launch, the service is still not integrated with the main Amazon service, and its catalog is too hit or miss for users to rely on it for all their delivery needs. Still, Amazon Prime Now is nice Prime perk for those in its delivery area, and it's a useful service for people who need to quickly receive household products, pet supplies, and the other items for which has a good product mix. If you need another reason not to get off your duff, Amazon Prime Now is ready to oblige.