Amazon is scrambling to fulfill online grocery orders from its customers. They have stopped accepting orders for the delivery to implement a waitlist.
During this lockdown, people have been told to stay put in their homes. No one is allowed to go out. No one is permitted to loiter even outside their doorsteps.
As soon as this announcement was made, people started hoarding home essential items. Naturally, as people stay at home longer, the pantry stocks deplete. People then are forced to step out of their houses to make a grocery run.
Luckily in the United States, they don’t have to do this because their groceries can be delivered straight to their homes. That is until Amazon stopped accepting orders from its subscribers.
Amazon grocery deliveries at a full capacity
Last April 12, Amazon announced that it has temporarily stopped accepting orders from its customers due to the overwhelming increase during this period.
The company has positioned itself as the premier delivery company that offers same-day deliveries in specific window hours. They were brought back to reality during this pandemic.
It would seem like the company is understaffed and underprepared that they did not foresee such a rapid increase. Amazon said that the company had seen a 60% increase in the total number of orders since the start of the lockdown period.
Today's visits by our founder and CEO @JeffBezos to say thank you to Amazon fulfillment center and @WholeFoods employees. We're all incredibly proud of the thousands of our colleagues working on the front lines to get critical goods to people everywhere during this crisis. pic.twitter.com/wxth2yURON
— Amazon (@amazon) April 9, 2020
Whole Foods increases capacity
Whole Foods was bought by Amazon back in 2017 for the latter to leverage its amazing online capability to fulfill deliveries. The vision was to be the go-to grocery and to be the go-to delivery service company.
Due to the lockdown, some physical stores were forced to shut their stores down. Nevertheless, due to clearer guidelines, the company plans to increase open stores from 80 to 150 stores.
Additionally, the company intends to shorten store hours for its staff to focus more on fulfilling online orders.
The company even went as far as postponing the opening of its much-anticipated new grocery chain. Instead, they converted the entire place into a warehouse to fulfill more orders for their customers.
Virtual ‘place in line’
Given the flood in the orders on Amazon’s website, they will be implementing an online queue system. This method is on top of the hourly windows delivery system when orders may be expected to be brought to customers’ homes.
According to Stephenie Landry, vice president of Grocery at Amazon, they expect that customers will find it challenging to find available delivery windows due to social distancing and increased customer demand.
Additionally, she said that if customers may be able to do so safely, the company encourages its customers who can shop in-person.
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