en.Wedoany.com Reported - Amazon US officially announced on May 12, 2026, that its 30-minute ultra-fast delivery service, Amazon Now, is undergoing a massive coverage expansion. The service area has significantly broadened from its initial pilot cities to include Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Philadelphia, and Seattle, and is rapidly advancing into dozens of other US cities such as Austin, Houston, Minneapolis, Orlando, Phoenix, Denver, and Oklahoma City. Udit Madan, Amazon's Senior Vice President of Worldwide Operations, clearly stated in a company announcement that the service is planned to reach tens of millions of users by the end of the year.
In its official press release, Amazon detailed the service's fee structure. Prime members pay a delivery fee of $3.99 per Amazon Now order, while non-Prime members are charged $13.99. For orders under $15, Prime members incur an additional $1.99 small order fee, while non-Prime members are charged an extra $3.99. The service offers 24/7 delivery in most covered areas, initially supporting thousands of items, including dairy, eggs, fresh produce, baked goods, health care, baby, pet supplies, personal care, electronics, and alcoholic beverages in permitted regions.
The key to enabling 30-minute ultra-fast delivery lies in Amazon's structural transformation of its last-mile logistics model. The new service no longer relies on traditional large suburban fulfillment centers but instead leverages a network of small, dedicated forward-deployed mini-warehouses located in densely populated areas to fulfill orders. These facilities are specifically designed for efficient order fulfillment and strategically positioned close to where users live and work, shortening the travel distance for delivery personnel. Beryl Tomay, Amazon's head of transportation, pointed out during a media briefing on the 11th that these mini-warehouses are roughly the size of a retail pharmacy and stock approximately 3,500 high-demand items. This model has already yielded early validation data from the Indian market—after launching in India, Prime member order volume tripled upon exposure to the 30-minute service window.
The competitive industry backdrop for this expansion is clear. The US instant retail market is in a phase of rapid growth, with its market size predicted to exceed $55.5 billion by 2029. This Amazon Now initiative directly enters the instant delivery track previously dominated by platforms like Instacart and DoorDash. Amazon is rapidly scaling the pilot results, previously achieved in Seattle and Philadelphia since December 2025, by leveraging operational data accumulated from the mini-warehouse model. In her public statements, Tomay emphasized that Amazon will not offer a delivery time guarantee but will instead focus on real-time tracking updates, distinguishing its approach from historical safety controversies triggered by some companies' "30-minute guaranteed delivery" promises.
Amazon's investment in logistics infrastructure is accelerating significantly. In April 2026, Amazon increased its investment in its Indian operations network to 280 billion Indian Rupees (approximately $300 million USD) to strengthen its logistics network and enhance delivery speed. Domestically in the US, Amazon had previously announced a dedicated fund of $4 billion to improve logistics timeliness in remote areas, extending same-day and next-day delivery services to over 4,000 small towns. The company's network of same-day fulfillment centers processed 500 million orders in the first quarter of 2026.
Within its suite of ultra-fast delivery services, Amazon Now occupies the very forefront of Amazon's delivery product matrix with its 30-minute timeframe. Amazon's other existing fast delivery options include: Prime Air drone delivery—offering delivery within 60 minutes across 9 US regions, supporting tens of thousands of items; 1-hour and 3-hour delivery—covering over 90,000 items; and Same-Day Delivery—covering millions of items across over 10,000 cities. Throughout 2025, Prime members received over 8 billion items via same-day or next-day delivery, a year-over-year increase of over 30%. The scaled expansion of Amazon Now represents a further deepening of this multi-tiered ultra-fast fulfillment system, with its mini-warehouse model compressing the final delivery radius to a minute-level response.
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