Amazon prepares to take its online groceries business beyond Seattle

Amazon is planning to roll out its online groceries service AmazonFresh to two new cities by the end of 2013, according to a Reuters report today that cites anonymous people familiar with the plans.

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AmazonFresh provides customers with meat, fruits, vegetables, dairy, eggs, and other perishable items via an Amazon-owned fleet of delivery trucks. The service has operated for several years in Seattle (which is also the location of Amazon’s main headquarters). The report indicates that Amazon plans to launch AmazonFresh in Los Angeles as soon as next week and in San Francisco before the end of the year. Also, a 20-city roll out is expected for 2014, according to Reuters’ sources.

We’re reaching out to Amazon for further comment and will update the post with any information we learn.

If true, Amazon could be shaking up the grocery industry by stealing business away from companies like Walmart, Target, Krogers, Safeway, and countless others — the majority of which do not offer a similar deliver-to-your-door business model. It’s also worth considering how competitive Amazon can be in prices compared to businesses that have physical stores in the area. (Fuel for a fleet of delivery trucks likely isn’t cheap, after all.)

But before you decry this as awful, you may want to consider how AmazonLocal could play out in regards to local farming business. If Amazon is able to deliver local, organic groceries to your doorstep at around the same price you can get them at local grocers, this may be wildly successful.

Vegetables photo via Shutterstock