Seattle – Amazon.com, which began testing Sunday deliveries in New York and Los Angeles in November, has extended the service to Prime members in 15 additional cities.
The e-tailer partnered with the U.S. Postal Service to develop the program, which will now serve Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Houston, Philadelphia and other cities in Louisiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Texas.
Amazon North America operations VP Mike Roth said most of the common-item Sunday deliveries to date have included baby supplies such as newborn apparel, books and toys. “Sunday delivery is clearly crossing errands off the weekend to-do list,” he said.
The service is offered free to Amazon Prime members where available. The Prime program provides two-day delivery and access to tens of thousands of streaming movies and TV shows for one annual fee of $99. Last month Amazon raised the price of Prime by $20, representing the first increase in the program’s nine-year history.
The Sunday service expansion follows the announcement this week of a new partnership with Twitter that allows Amazon shoppers to add items to their shopping carts directly from tweeted links. Users can fill their carts by replying to a post with the hashtag #AmazonCart.
According to Bloomberg, the deal calls for Amazon to increase its product ad spend on Twitter in lieu of sales commissions, and is part of Twitter’s push to add e-commerce options for its advertisers.