Online retail giant Amazon announced a partnership with the U.S. Postal Service to deliver packages on Sundays, starting in the Los Angeles and New York metropolitan areas.
Amazon and the U.S. Postal Service plan to roll out this service to a large portion of the U.S. population in 2014 including Dallas, Houston, New Orleans and Phoenix, to name a few.
Amazon Prime members, who receive unlimited, free two-day shipping on millions of items, can now receive their packages on Sundays in these areas.
“If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can order a backpack for your child on Friday and be packing it for them Sunday night,” Dave Clark, Amazon’s vice president of worldwide operations and customer service, said in a statement. “We’re excited that now every day is an Amazon delivery day and we know our Prime members, who voraciously shop on Amazon, will love the additional convenience they will experience as part of this new service.”
In order to participate, Amazon customers just add whatever eligible items they desire to their online shopping cart, and can see if the Sunday delivery promise at checkout is available in their region.
“Delivery on a Sunday would be very compelling for consumers. There are certainly people who decide not to make an order on a Friday because it won’t get there until Monday,” Sucharita Mulpuru, a Forrester Research analyst, said in a Wall Street Journal report.
The regions getting Sunday service will reportedly extend outside the borders of the United States to serve Amazon customers in London, according to the same Journal report.
The article, which interviewed Clark, said that London deliveries would be made on Sundays using Amazon’s own trucks, as opposed to the United States, where the Postal Service trucks will be used.
“As online shopping continues to increase, the Postal Service is very happy to offer shippers like Amazon the option of having packages delivered on Sunday,” Patrick R. Donahoe, Postmaster General and CEO, said in a statement. “With this new service, the Postal Service is now delivering packages seven days a week in select cities. Customers can expect the same reliable and valued service that the Postal Service currently provides.”
On the peak shopping day last year, Nov. 26, Amazon customers ordered more than 26.5 million items worldwide across all product categories, which is a record-breaking 306 items per second.
In 2012 the company held the top spot in customer satisfaction during the holiday-shopping season for its eighth consecutive year, according to the ForeSee annual Holiday E-Retail Satisfaction Index, which is based on a survey asking more than 24,000 customers between Thanksgiving and Christmas to rate their satisfaction with the top 100 retailers.