Understand how Amazon’s growing competitiveness in grocery is being driven by a single strategic shift: its same-day perishables offer.
Amazon’s growing competitiveness in grocery is being driven by a single strategic shift: the launch and rapid expansion of its same‑day perishables offer.
What began as a series of experiments has now become, in CEO Andy Jassy’s words, “a real needle mover,” reshaping Amazon’s stores business and winning more grocery spending away from traditional supermarkets. Perishables are now central to Amazon’s retail strategy, and they are accelerating growth across the wider ecosystem.
Perishables are transforming Amazon’s grocery performance
In its Q2 2026 earnings release, Amazon attributed its momentum directly to perishables. Jassy highlighted that “the number of monthly active perishables customers grew over 50% since the start of the year,” adding that “same‑day orders with perishables averaged over three times more units per order, and fresh groceries now make up six of the top twenty bestsellers on Amazon.com.”
According to Numerator’s market share tracking, Amazon and Whole Foods, driven by the rollout of same‑day perishables delivery across more cities, posted the largest grocery share gains among major US retailers over the past year. In markets where the service is live, Jassy said “…90% of the top 10 best‑selling items are perishable items”, showing how quickly customer behaviour changes once fresh food becomes available within hours.
The result is a structural change in Amazon’s basket economics. Perishables customers buy more items, buy more frequently, and increasingly treat Amazon as a default grocery run rather than a top‑up channel.
A logistics model built for fresh food
Amazon’s advantage is not store count but speed. Following its January 2026 announcement that it would shutter all Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go stores and shift its brick‑and‑mortar focus to Whole Foods Market, the company’s physical footprint remains modest compared with national grocers.
Instead, its same‑day fulfilment network is built for perishables, using dedicated facilities, regional hubs and AI‑driven inventory systems to move fresh food quickly and predictably. Amazon is also compressing delivery windows even further through Amazon Now, a new thirty‑minute delivery service rolling out across dozens of US cities. It reinforces the same expectation shift: fresh food and essentials delivered almost immediately.
These gains are reinforced by Amazon’s broader retail flywheel, where Prime adoption, AI‑driven product discovery and increasingly automated inventory systems all make it easier for shoppers to treat Amazon as a default grocery destination.
This is changing consumer behaviour. eMarketer reports that more than half of US digital shoppers purchased food or beverages from Amazon in the past thirty days. Groceries and essentials are now growing meaningfully faster than the rest of Amazon’s stores business.
Jassy summarised the strategic shift clearly. “We have tried lots of experiments over the last few years, but we have finally found something that is a real needle mover for us in offering perishables in our same‑day facilities.”
Why grocers should be concerned
Amazon’s push into perishables poses a structural threat to traditional supermarkets for five reasons:
High value baskets: fresh food drives larger orders, higher frequency and deeper engagement. Grocers cannot easily replicate Amazon’s speed without major investment.
Accelerating digital adoption: as more shoppers normalise buying fresh food online, Amazon becomes their default weekly shop rather than a convenience channel.
Material market share gains: Amazon and Whole Foods are posting the strongest share gains in US grocery. This is not a temporary spike but evidence that Amazon’s model can scale without needing thousands of stores.
Redefining convenience: Amazon’s speed is changing what shoppers consider convenient. If fresh food can arrive within hours, the traditional convenience store model becomes less relevant, and Amazon captures missions that once belonged to small‑format retail.
Compounding long‑term advantages: as Amazon combines its data, operational insight and emerging AI agents, it is building capabilities that strengthen its grocery position over time. The foundations being laid today could widen its advantage in the years ahead.
Amazon is changing shoppers’ expectations for online grocery. The industry is shifting toward immediacy, and Amazon is setting the pace in the US. The UK already offers the same service, with fresh groceries now available through Amazon’s same‑day delivery across hundreds of London postcodes. While adoption has not yet matched the US, the underlying model is in place and could drive similar shifts as coverage expands.
Looking for deeper insight into where ecommerce is heading?
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