With many cities on lock-down and social distancing in place due to the Coronavirus, grocery delivery services have skyrocketed as people seek to avoid going to populated grocery stores and mass merchants. Unfortunately, these services are struggling to keep up with the high demand, and now, even Amazon grocery delivery service is no longer accepting new customers for now.
Starting today, new customers who want to sign up for grocery deliveries from Amazon through its Amazon Prime Now and Amazon Fresh services will be placed on a wait list. Customers have reported problems getting delivery slots over the last few weeks, and now Amazon is formalizing its approach to the issue by limiting new customers. Amazon says it is working on making more availability of new customers by increasing its capacity, and it will also introduce a queue system that allows customers to reserve a delivery slot.
Amazon owns the Whole Foods supermarket chain, which offers both deliveries and pickup services. The company says it is upping the number of Whole Foods stores, which offer grocery pickup. In fact, they’re increasing from 80 locations to 150 locations, which should help serve the demand while keeping contact between customers to a minimum. They are also reducing store ours so staff can concentrate on filling delivery orders rather than stocking store shelves.
