Amazon now wants to deliver your essentials in 30 minutes

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Amazon just hit the turbo button on online shopping. 

The company quietly rolled out Amazon Now, a new ultrafast delivery service promising to drop essentials at your door in about 30 minutes, basically the Prime version of teleportation. 

The pilot is already live in parts of Seattle and Philadelphia, marking Amazon’s biggest leap yet into the “I need it right now” economy.

We’re not talking a tiny convenience-store menu, either. 

Amazon Now covers thousands of items: milk, eggs, phone chargers, allergy meds, basically all the things you only remember you need when it’s already an emergency. 

Prime members get friendlier pricing, with delivery fees starting at $3.99. (Via: Digital Trends)

Non-Prime folks? You’re looking at $13.99 per order, plus a $1.99 small-order fee if your cart doesn’t hit $15. Turns out, speed is not cheap.

How does Amazon pull off half-hour delivery? Not by making drivers break traffic laws. 

Instead, the company has built a brand-new network of mini fulfillment centers tucked closer to neighborhoods, layered on top of its already massive logistics empire. 

And make no mistake, this is Amazon taking a direct swing at Instacart, Gopuff, and DoorDash, all of which have struggled to turn hyper-fast delivery into a sustainable business. 

Amazon, with its deep pockets and Prime loyalty machine, might actually crack the code. In fact, Amazon Now feels like a giant incentive to make Prime feel irresistible again. 

If Amazon can get you a charger before your phone hits 1%, that’s a level of dependency most apps can only dream of.

For customers, this could be a game-changer. 

Forgetting diapers? Missing one dinner ingredient? Need cold meds right now? Amazon’s betting you’ll happily tap “Order” instead of sprinting to the store. 

But with limited coverage and hefty non-Prime fees, it’s not quite the universal life-saver yet.

Amazon hasn’t shared which cities get next dibs, but hiring patterns suggest this isn’t a one-off.