Amazon Offers Prime Shoppers $10 If They Opt for Pickup Over Delivery
Amazon is paying customers to pick up purchases rather than shipping them to their homes.
The e-commerce giant is emailing Prime subscribers to offer $10 to retrieve an order of $25 or more at pickup points like Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods, or Kohl's stores, Reuters reports(Opens in a new window).
For those looking to fend off porch pirates, Amazon already offers the option to pick up orders at Amazon Lockers, which are located in and around retail stores like supermarkets or drugstores. But there's currently no financial incentive for using a locker over home delivery.
Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods are Amazon-owned stores, and Amazon has partnered with Kohl's on returns for several years. According to Reuters, adding pick-up options at these stores is a bid to cut down on delivery costs. (For those who want home delivery, Amazon also offers a "delivery day" option for fewer delivery trips out to your home.)
Amazon did not immediately respond to PCMag's request for comment, and no Amazon Prime members at PCMag have received the $10 offer, so it's unclear how many people the company is targeting at the moment and where. The Reuters story quotes shipping consultant Dean Maciuba, who lives in upstate New York and received the $10 offer.
According to Maciuba, encouraging package pickup could help train consumers to make returns directly to the company rather than via a third party like UPS or FedEx. Some folks already incur a $1 fee for returning packages through UPS when there's an Amazon pickup/return location closer to their delivery address.
Amazon has already made it more expensive to get items delivered over the last year. An annual Amazon Prime membership went from $119 to $139, and Amazon Fresh customers now have to
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