Well, folks, it seems like Amazon’s latest experiment has hit the cancel order button. In a shocking twist (or perhaps not so shocking if you’ve been keeping up with Amazon’s grandiose ideas), the e-commerce giant has decided to shut down its Amazon Today service. For those unfamiliar, Amazon Today was supposed to be the superhero of speedy deliveries from brick-and-mortar stores—giving customers their retail therapy within hours. But alas, it’s going the way of the Amazon Fire Phone: straight into the discontinued pile
.
The service, which launched in 2022, allowed retailers to showcase their in-store inventory on Amazon’s platform and offered delivery within hours via Amazon’s Flex drivers. Now, those speedy deliveries will be slowing to a halt by the end of the year. The bulk of the program will be shut down by December 2, and retailers still hanging on will be wrapping things up by January 2025.
The reason? Some insiders say that, while the service seemed promising, it didn’t quite reach the scale Amazon hoped for—despite recent efforts to pitch the concept at conferences
And what’s the aftermath? A few employees will find themselves reallocated within Amazon, while the rest of us will just have to wait a little longer for our last-minute impulse buys. Cue sad violins for anyone who thought same-day delivery from the mall would be the future.
Stay tuned for the next chapter in Amazon’s ongoing quest for world domination—or at least, faster shipping times.
