August 2nd, 2007
Amazon experiments with groceries
Amazon appears to experimenting with grocery deliveries in Seattle.
The invite only service, which was highlighted by Michael Arrington at TechCrunch, is dubbed Amazon Fresh and promises a fresh selection, value and convenience of grocery shopping online.
Arrington makes the obvious comparison to Webvan and its flameout, but misses one key point: The online grocery model works and is being exhibited daily in New York City via FreshDirect. In fact, FreshDirect bought a big chunk of Webvan’s equipment in a bankruptcy auction.
In fact, Amazon Fresh’s graphical explainer looks almost identical to what you’d find on Fresh Direct. 
If this little Seattle experiment works out for Amazon can an acquisition of FreshDirect be that far behind?
I did a case study a few years ago on FreshDirect. It’s an impressive operation that would tuck into Amazon nicely.
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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