Amazon hits major milestone that Walmart, Target want todayheadline

If you’ve ordered anything online recently, you probably noticed a few things before your order even arrived at your door.

Before you even pressed purchase, you couldn’t ignore the sheer number of choices presented to you.

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Say you needed a couple of essentials by the weekend. Everything on your list, from cleaning sprays to walking shoes, for example, probably turned up dozens — if not hundreds — of selections to choose from. Gone are the days of limited options. 

Once you waded through the options and finally pressed purchase, you may have taken for granted just how easy it was to buy those items. 

Given the red-hot competition among online retail giants, you were probably surprised at the number of deals and promotions available, too. It’s a race to the bottom in terms of pricing.

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Most retailers now have our payment methods and other data saved, such as our addresses and preferred delivery method, eliminating the steps we need to take before completing a delivery. 

But that’s not even the fun part. Once you actually pressed the buy button, you may have been surprised at just how quickly your items showed up. 

Retailers are in a tight race

Increasingly, more retailers are attempting to edge one another out in just a handful of ways. 

Nowadays, it’s no longer enough to have a robust online search presence or flashy branding. 

Customers are increasingly clear about their priorities and the things they seek from an online retailer. And it really boils down to just two things. 

Price and convenience. 

Three of the largest online retailers, Amazon  (AMZN) , Walmart  (WMT) , and Target  (TGT)  regularly run promotions and deals on select inventory. 

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It’s no coincidence that these three retailers run massive deal days within weeks of one another, as with Amazon Prime Days and Target Circle Week.

All three also now offer some of the fastest online shipping speeds available. All three offer same-day delivery on select items, and are rapidly working to evolve their arsenal of logistics to add more items.

Amazon hits a key milestone

Both Target and Walmart offer same day delivery options, but with limited quantities and inventory. It’s Amazon that reigns supreme in the speedy online delivery game.

By some estimates, approximately 60% of all e-commerce purchases made in the U.S. are done on Amazon, which gives the retailer access not only to a ton of capital to pour into improving its online fulfillment capabilities but at customers data and interests, too. 

The online giant has been working hard to ramp up its same-day delivery options, and it announced on Tuesday that 2024 was the best year ever in terms of convenience and speed for customers. 

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“Amazon delivered at our fastest speeds ever for Prime members globally in 2024 and delivered more than 9 billion items the same day or next day,” Amazon wrote. 

It added that it now delivers same- or next-day delivery to 140 metro areas, having grown its capabilities by 60%. 

Amazon added that the average Prime member now places 100 orders per year, or about two orders per week.

And since Amazon already has access to so many members — 200 million and counting — it continues to grow its convenience category, so folks don’t need to pop out to a big box store competitor if they don’t have to. 

“Over 2 billion items from our everyday essentials selection arrived the same or next day in the U.S. last year—an increase of more than 50% year-over-year,” Amazon wrote. 

These include things like baby essentials, personal care products, beauty, health, pet supplies, and more.

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