The food delivery portion of its Prime services began rolling out in September, starting with Seattle and is in direct competition with similar services such as GrubHub. Amazon is aiming to dominate the digital delivery field by offering a full comprehensive list of services to Prime members, making them more inclined to subscribe.

“The service works to provide additional value to Amazon Prime members, further solidifying the value proposition of the membership,” said Shuli Lowy, marketing director at Ping Mobile. “It is important for any membership service to constantly evolve its offering.

“A service should always feel like it is getting better or providing something new,” she said. “This requires a concerted effort to not only evolve the product offering but also to pace out the role out of new features so that the service always feels fresh.”

Delivery on mobile promises
Mobile Amazon Prime users are now able to order through their devices by entering their zip code. Members in eligible locations will be able to get free delivery from a long list of select local restaurants, through their Prime membership.

The service originally launched in Seattle and has been expanding to a variety of marketers, with other big restaurant chains also hoping to get in on the mobile delivery action.

Starbucks also began testing mobile delivery in Seattle in December, hoping to recreate its mobile payments and ordering successes, but it is likely to be Amazon, which also previously expanded its restaurant delivery offering to Baltimore, that will dominate mobile delivery news in the future (see more).

Users will be able to browse menus of nearby restaurants, select an order and have it delivered to their homes directly within the Prime app or online. Delivery drivers from Amazon will pickup the food and transport it to user’s homes, eliminating the need for restaurants to provide travel themselves.

Prime mobile real estate
Amazon also expanded its mobile-enabled Prime Now service to include delivery capabilities from a slew of Manhattan eateries and grocery stores, including D’Agostino and Billy’s Bakery last May (see more).

Big retailers are making mobile delivery as a whole more accepted within customer use, but Amazon’s launch is heating up the competition in this field. The retailer is sinking its claws into every aspect of retail it can so Prime members can access any segment of entertainment or goods they want, from music and television programming to restaurant delivery.

“If successful, Amazon’s push into the restaurant category can eventually serve as a powerful position for the company and generate additional revenue streams,” Ms. Lowy said. “If all Prime members start ordering take out food on Prime then Amazon will become a gateway to substantial restaurant commerce.

“Serving as a gateway to commerce is always an enviable position as it makes the service attractive to restaurants as well and provides opportunities to bring in additional revenue streams from them,” she said.