Amazon expands in-garage delivery to 4K cities

Dive Brief:

Amazon is expanding its Key In-Garage delivery service to Prime members in more than 4,000 cities and towns across the U.S., including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Boston and Houston, the company announced on Thursday.
The service allows Amazon Prime customers with a myQ smart garage door opener to have their packages delivered to their home garages. The e-commerce giant initially launched the service in 50 cities before the recent expansion, according to the press release.
The company is also launching Key In-Garage Grocery Delivery in five cities, which allows Prime members to receive their grocery orders from Whole Foods or Amazon Fresh straight to their garage. The service will be available in parts of Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle before launching in other U.S. cities, per the press release.

Dive Insight:

Amazon first announced keyless entry deliveries in January 2019, and in April of last year the offering officially launched for use in Prime members' homes.

Amazon wanted to expand its in-garage delivery service to give more customers access to contactless deliveries, Pete Gerstberger, head of Key by Amazon, said in a statement. Prime members using the service can also use their compatible Ring smart home camera or LiftMaster Smart Garage Camera to watch videos of their deliveries, according to the company press release.

Amazon's expansion of garage deliveries, especially to include grocery, comes after the e-commerce giant has expanded its fulfillment options with Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh. In September, Whole Foods Market announced plans to allow grocery pickup from most of its U.S. stores by the end of that month. A few days prior to that announcement, the retailer also opened its first dark store dedicated solely to fulfilling online orders. Back in August, the company opened its first Amazon Fresh storefront in Woodland Hills, California.

The e-commerce giant's move to improve contactless delivery options comes at a time when retailers are getting creative with their fulfillment options, including through partnerships with the likes of Instacart and DoorDash. On the grocery front in particular, delivery has been a point of friction as retailers work to find ways to deliver groceries without them going bad. Walmart, for one, started piloting a delivery service directly to consumers' fridges in October of last year.