Smartphone users in Singapore can now download the Amazon Prime Now app on iOS and Android after news of its imminent arrival in the country leaked.Prime Now is Amazon’s express grocery service, which delivers goods to your location within two hours. Users pay a membership fee to access it, along with other services like Amazon Prime Video, a Netflix competitor.
Here’s what it looks like on the iPhone:
The store looks well-stocked with a variety of groceries and household items, ranging from fruits and vegetables to electronics, pet food, and stationary. The ecommerce giant’s house label, Amazon Basics, is also available.
For a limited time, users can order via the app without a membership. The delivery fee is S$5.99 (US$4.40) for orders below S$40 (US$29), and free for orders above.
Amazon Prime Now competes head-on with online grocers Redmart (owned by Lazada) and Honestbee, and could steal market share away from supermarkets like NTUC Fairprice, Cold Storage, and Sheng Shiong.
It’s also battling Live Up, Lazada’s take on a membership program.
While Redmart has been around for years, it does not offer same-day delivery like Amazon Prime Now and Honestbee do. If you attempt to order items on a Wednesday night on RedMart, you’d receive your goods by Friday earliest. With Amazon Prime Now, you can select a time slot on Thursday morning.
Amazon is also synonymous with ecommerce in Singapore, which presents a threat to Redmart. Fortunately, Redmart has a deep war chest courtesy of Lazada, which is in turn owned by Alibaba.
This means it can survive a protracted price war. That’s a luxury smaller ecommerce players don’t have.
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