Amazon sets new shipping speed records in Q1 2024
Amazon is not resting on its laurels after achieving its fastest-ever global shipping times in 2023.
According to Amazon, it set new records for Prime delivery speeds in the first quarter of 2024, with more than two billion items arriving the same or next day to Prime members around the world. This follows Amazon making deliveries in the shortest amount of time in its history on average during 2023.
In March 2024, Amazon data indicates that nearly 60% of Prime member orders arrived the same or next day across the top 60 largest U.S. metro areas. The e-tailer delivered three out of four items the same or next day in London, Tokyo and Toronto. Amazon also continues to grow its selection while speeding up Prime deliveries.
When Amazon first launched its paid Prime membership program in the U.S. in 2005, it offered free two-day shipping on one million items. The company now offers more than 300 million items with free Prime shipping, including tens of millions of products available with same-day and one-day shipping.
Amazon has improved shipping speeds with initiatives such as focusing on stocking inventory in regional fulfillment centers near last-mile delivery stations, Amazon also expanded its same-day delivery service during 2023, adding nine new dedicated sites and serving 18 additional U.S. cities over the course of the year, bringing the total number to 110.
The retailer plans to double the number of sites in the coming years and currently operates more than 55 dedicated same-day sites across the U.S. These smaller sites are hybrid—part fulfillment center, part delivery station.
In the fourth quarter of 2023, Amazon increased the number of items delivered the same day or overnight in the U.S. by more than 65% year-over-year. Amazon Pharmacy, which the e-tailer has been enhancing with generative AI, now has same-day delivery available in Seattle, Austin, Indianapolis, Miami and Phoenix.
This year, the company intends to refine its regionalization model, making sure each region is the right size and operating smoothly. Amazon is also setting a 2024 goal for its operations teams to have a better sense of what inventory is coming in and in what amounts, which will allow them to align that inventory to what customers in a particular region want and need, helping to make the process more efficient.
Amazon also recently expanded its Prime Air drone delivery program to Arizona, and intends to do so well as Italy. Other initiatives Amazon intends to launch in 2024 as part of its effort to improve shipping speed include rolling out its Sequoia robotic storage system to more fulfillment facilities.
[Read more: What Amazon’s robotic fulfillment centers reveal about e-commerce]