Amazon has taken an important step in the field of quick commerce in Europe. The company has launched Amazon Now in London. Users can order thousands of everyday essentials, including groceries and personal care items, which are delivered within 30 minutes in selected parts of the city.
Specifically, this concerns the opening of ‘QLD1’, the first quick local delivery location in the United Kingdom. From this site, orders are delivered within 30 minutes in the Southwark Area, a business and creative hub on the south bank of the Thames, directly opposite the city.
New last-mile delivery model
This appears to be the first of many new steps Amazon plans to take in quick commerce in Europe, inspired by its experiences in India and the United Arab Emirates. Elisa Michelin Salomon, EU Quick Commerce Program Lead at Amazon, writes on LinkedIn: “Six months ago, when we started this journey, I would never have imagined we could deliver a brand new service at this speed.”
‘Foundations for what is coming next in the UK and EU’
“This was not just a site launch — it meant taking on the huge responsibility of standing up an entirely new network, shaping new operations, and enabling a new last-mile delivery model from the ground up.” In collaboration with no fewer than 57 different Amazon teams, Salomon says the foundations have been laid for “what is coming next in the United Kingdom and the EU.”
Amazon Now
Amazon is the market leader in ecommerce in the United Kingdom. In 2024, revenue grew by 12.7 percent to 36.7 billion euros, partly thanks to the delivery of more than one billion products within a single day. Figures for the past year are expected shortly.
With Amazon Now, the company is responding to the need for speed among online shoppers, especially for everyday essentials. To make quick commerce possible in the United Kingdom and across Europe, a dense network of smaller fulfilment locations is required.
Fully integrated
Amazon Now is not a separate service or app, as its predecessor Amazon Prime Now once was, but is fully integrated into the main Amazon platform. In examples shared by Salomon, the delivery fee amounts to 3.99 British pounds on an order of 16.14 pounds.
