Six years after the launch of Amazon Pantry, Amazon has discontinued the popular service.
Originally known as Prime Pantry, the option initially charged mainland US customers a fixed shipping fee of $ 5.99 for a box that could be filled with up to 45 kilograms of non-perishable food and household goods. household.
It had started as an alternative to the traditional supermarket, but had started to compete with other Amazon offers – the company owned by Jeff Bezos took over Whole Foods and launched its own Amazon Fresh grocery stores.
Amazon continues to sell canned goods, pasta, cereals, detergents and other commodities through the Prime Prime website.
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Amazon Pantry was launched in 2014, allowing customers to pay a fixed shipping fee of $ 5 for up to £ 45 for household and non-perishable food. A notification on the Amazon website indicates that the service has been discontinued
After launching in the US, the service was available in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, India and the UK, where the items were supplied by the British supermarket chain Morrisons.
At that time, many of the items in the Pantry were not available on the main Amazon site because they were individual in size, not in bulk.
A limited and ever-changing variety of goods was available – including, according to Amazon, “soft drinks and bottled water, a new range of paper and laundry products in popular packaging, simple breakfast cereal boxes, potato chips, convenience – large personal care products and more. ‘
Since then, however, it has become increasingly aggressive in dominating the food industry, both online and in bricks.
In 2018, Amazon turned the Pantry program into a $ 5 monthly subscription service. In March, Amazon briefly suspended pantry service as the coronavirus pandemic blocked supply chains and limited the number of workers available to stock orders.
Amazon acquired Whole Foods in 2017 for a report of $ 13.7 billion, offering it almost 450 physical locations.
It now offers Whole Foods delivery services to Amazon Prime members in over 2,000 US cities.
In 2018, Amazon turned the Pantry program into a $ 5 monthly subscription service, which allowed Prime members an unlimited number of orders over $ 40.
The flat fee – up to $ 8 – would be added to orders under $ 40 or from members who are not members of the pantry.
The e-commerce giant has also opened the first Amazon Go shopping store in 2018, allowing customers to buy basic items without having to physically check at a register.
Since the launch of Amazon Pantry as Prime Pantry in 2014, Amazon has raised its stakes in the food industry by buying Whole Foods, launching Amazon Go cashless shopping stores and Amazon Fresh supermarkets.
The first Amazon Fresh supermarket was opened in Los Angeles in 2019.
Industry experts say the number of products offered through Pantry has begun to decline in recent years.
Now, on Amazon’s main site, a notification indicates that Amazon Pantry has been “discontinued.”
A message that encourages customers to “buy bestsellers in the pantry, along with other food and essential household items”, to the main category “Gourmet food and food”.
The coronavirus pandemic has led to an increase in demand for online grocery services such as Pantry, Amazon Fresh, Fresh Direct and Peapod.
In March, the pantry service was briefly suspended as supply chains slowed and warehouses closed.
“Due to the large order volumes, Pantry is not accepting new orders at this time,” one company said.
“This means that items listed as ‘Shipped and sold out of the pantry’ cannot be added to your shopping cart. We apologize for this inconvenience and work with our partners to restore these items to stock as soon as possible. ‘
A month later, the company put new customers on a waiting list to prioritize existing members.
Amazon said its online food ordering capacity increased by more than 60% in the first weeks of the outbreak.
But many buyers who want to buy food from the Seattle company have found that they can’t place orders because of the lack of available delivery slots.