Amazon’s pace of order fulfillment continues to accelerate, demonstrating the company’s relentless pursuit of logistical excellence and customer convenience. On Monday, the e-commerce giant announced a significant initiative aimed at propelling its delivery capabilities into the realm of ultrafast fulfillment. The new trial program, being conducted in Seattle and Philadelphia, focuses on achieving an ambitious delivery time of only thirty minutes — a benchmark that, if scaled successfully, could redefine speed standards in digital retail.
This experimental service, aptly titled **Amazon Now**, enables shoppers to choose from a broad and carefully curated range of frequently purchased essentials. These include daily necessities such as diapers, milk, and pet food, along with a variety of consumer electronics and other household items. Every order is designed to reach the customer’s doorstep in under half an hour, a feat that underscores Amazon’s deep integration of advanced logistics technology, optimized warehouse operations, and geographically strategic delivery networks.
In the Seattle pilot, the process functions as a carefully orchestrated chain of tasks that leave little room for inefficiency. According to reporting from the technology news outlet *GeekWire*, based on Amazon’s permit applications filed with the city, warehouse employees rapidly locate and package selected goods before transferring them to **Amazon Flex drivers** — independent delivery partners who serve as the critical final link in the chain. These drivers are expected to collect the order and begin their route within a remarkably short window of approximately two minutes. This streamlined approach exemplifies Amazon’s ongoing emphasis on minimizing delays at every stage of fulfillment.
Even though Amazon undisputedly dominates global e-commerce in terms of transaction volume and brand recognition, it still faces stiff competition regarding delivery speed — an area where **Walmart** currently enjoys a geographical and logistical advantage. With over 4,600 physical stores distributed across the United States, Walmart possesses a highly localized infrastructure that allows more than 95% of American households to receive deliveries within roughly three hours. This level of proximity grants Walmart a strategic upper hand, enabling its logistics network to respond quickly to orders placed online or through its app. The retailer has shared that more than one-third of its customers voluntarily pay an additional surcharge to receive their orders in under an hour, reflecting the rising consumer demand for immediacy in retail experiences. Such efficiency has even produced remarkable examples: on Black Friday, Walmart achieved its record-breaking fastest delivery when a Shark Steam & Scrub Mop reached a shopper in Utah only minutes after the purchase was placed.
Amazon, of course, has not remained passive amid this intensifying competition. In June, the company began expanding its **same-day delivery program** to encompass more than 4,000 smaller communities throughout the United States. By stocking higher volumes of everyday essentials at decentralized delivery stations located closer to residential areas, Amazon aims to reduce transportation distances and accelerate logistical throughput. This strategic investment represents a continuation of the firm’s broader objective: to erase the distinction between online shopping and instant gratification.
However, the question looming on the horizon is whether U.S. retailers can eventually compress fulfillment times to an even more extraordinary benchmark — 15 minutes or less. On this point, supply chain consultant **Ralph Asher** offered a sobering perspective in an interview with *Business Insider*. According to Asher, the theoretical limits imposed by both physics and economics stand as formidable obstacles to achieving such extreme delivery speeds. Drawing from his own modeling work in Minneapolis, he illustrated that a citywide 30-minute service could feasibly operate using four strategically positioned fulfillment stations. Yet, reducing that timeframe to just 15 minutes would require an exponential leap — thirty-one active fulfillment centers stocked with sufficient inventory to avoid shortages and delays.
Asher noted that scaling such a system would introduce unsustainable costs and logistical complexities. Each added station demands more warehouse space, a larger fleet of delivery vehicles and drivers, higher inventory levels, and specialized equipment designed to handle rapid turnover. Furthermore, the human element remains a constraint: fulfillment personnel and drivers would need to operate with near-instant responsiveness, perpetually ready to dispatch at a moment’s notice. These compounded requirements illustrate why, in Asher’s assessment, there may be limited market appetite or economic justification for delivery times under thirty minutes. In essence, the pursuit of ever-faster fulfillment faces a point of diminishing returns — where speed, cost, and practicality intersect in a delicate balance that defines the future of ultra-rapid commerce.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-is-testing-ultrafast-delivery-in-30-minutes-or-less-2025-12
