Amazon Restaurant Delivery Service To Cease Operations In The US

Although Amazon may be a giant conglomerate, it cannot gain access to every field it enters. Right now, the company will be exiting its food delivery program across the world. Amazon Restaurants, the name of the program, is scheduled to shutdown in USA and cease all operations by June 24. This decision was announced by Amazon on Tuesday. Launched during 2015, the service was used to serve food to Amazon Prime members. It operated from Seattle at first and expanded into over 2 dozen cities.

Multiple small-time employees who had been affected extensively by this announcement had already been placed at other roles in the company. Remaining employees would be helped to find jobs either outside or within the company, Amazon said in its statement.

After its shutdown in USA, Amazon Restaurants can be considered dead. It lost against global competitors like Just Eat, Uber Eats, Postmates, GrubHub, and DoorDash.

GrubHub shares have increased by 5% during early trading sessions after Amazon’s announcement. Since Amazon Restaurants would no longer be competing with the service, it can now breathe a sigh of relief, as that’s one more competitor off the map.

November saw Amazon slowly dialing down the service as it shut down operations in London. The city was the only location outside the US where Amazon Restaurants were launched. Then, Amazon invested in Deliveroo, which was a London delivery service, with a presence in 14 territories and countries across the world. Germany, Australia and France were among its operating locations.

Although the company has disbanded this business in USA, Amazon still offers food in various ways. Amazon Prime members are able to get Whole Foods deliveries of groceries right to their doorstep. The company had bought Whole Food for around $13.7 billion in 2017.

Prime members also have an option of availing AmazonFresh services where groceries are delivered to their doorsteps as well. This costs an extra $14.99 every month, even for Prime customers.