Amazon Prime Now: one-hour delivery service launched in London

Customers who are signed up to Amazon’s premium £79-a-year Prime service can order through an app with a guaranteed delivery within an hour for £6.99. There is also a slightly slower but free “same day” service when delivery can be booked in a two-hour time slot between 8am and midnight.

Currently items ordered by Prime members are only guaranteed for next-day arrival. The one-hour and same-day service will start off being available on about 10,000 of Amazon’s most popular goods, including daily groceries such as coffee and wine as well as toys, games consoles and best-sellers in the books, films and music categories. They will be stocked at new warehouses close to the centre of London with the first one at Bow.

The deliveries can be made to an outside location — such as a park bench — as well as more conventional home or office addresses as the app has a map that can be used to pinpoint where you want the driver to go.

Christopher North, managing director of Amazon UK, said the one-hour service was designed to help with domestic emergencies when, for example, “you are out of nappies and you don’t really want to go out of the house but you definitely can’t wait until the next day”.

Mr North added: “When I joined Amazon nine years ago the usual delivery time was three to five days. As Prime has grown they have got accustomed to next-day delivery. I’ve never met an Amazon customer who has said ‘I wish it could be a bit slower’.”