Amazon isn’t the only retailer delivering online orders the same day they’re placed.
Best Buy, with the help of a Menlo Park, Calif.-based delivery service called Deliv, is doing just that in 13 major metropolitan markets.
The service, still in pilot mode, was launched last fall in San Francisco, and was extended to New York early this year, the CE chain said.
Since then, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Seattle and Washington, D.C., have been added to the fold.
Here’s how it works: BestBuy.com customers within eligible markets can select “Expedited Shipping” upon checkout, and receive their order by 9 p.m. that evening if the purchase was made before 3 p.m.
The service is available for most products within Best Buy’s assortment, although items weighing more than 50 pounds are excluded. Fees average between $10 and $20 per order, equivalent to the cost of sending an overnight package, and same-day delivery of printer ink is free.
Orders are fulfilled six days a week — no Sundays — from the more than 165 participating Best Buy stores, and are hand-delivered by Deliv’s carefully vetted fleet of independent drivers. Deliv said it honchos all aspects of the delivery, including customer support and problem resolution, “closing the last mile gap” between e-tailer and customer.
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For its part, Best Buy said the initiative is part of its “ongoing commitment to improving the in-store and online shopping experience,” so customers can get what they want, when and where they want it.
The push for ever-faster e-tail fulfillment has given rise to a host of on-demand delivery companies like Fleetzen, Buddytruk and Deliv, and new applications for transit businesses like Uber, Lyft and Car2go.
Similarly, Amazon is testing its own Uber-like delivery service in Seattle called Amazon Flex, which uses independent on-call drivers.
