Amazon has announced that it’s discontinued its Amazon Pantry (originally known as Prime Pantry) service, instead rolling those household goods and shelf-stable pantry items into the main Amazon website where they can be ordered alongside the rest of Amazon’s products.
The e-commerce behemoth had launched Pantry in 2014. The service had offered consumers a way to stock up on bulky, non-perishable household items including food, snacks, and cleaning products.
In 2018, Prime Pantry changed its subscription service where extra $4.99 a month on Prime membership gave users unlimited free shipping on any orders over $40 from the Prime Pantry service. Before that, Prime Pantry required a per-order flat fee of $5.99 even for Prime members.
Despite the fact that Amazon is removing Prime Pantry, the company’s grocery delivery ambitions are still stronger than ever. Amazon now owns Whole Foods, an entire chain of grocery stores, and has started to roll out its own Amazon Fresh-branded stores as well. And the company still offers its Fresh and Whole Foods delivery service for Amazon Prime members (having previously removed the $15 per month subscription fee for that in 2019) that provides grocery delivery in over 2,000 cities in the United States, according to a report by The Verge.
The Amazon Fresh store will continue to offer online shopping services in addition to in-person shopping. Amazon said it will offer free same-day delivery for Prime members, and there are also in-store pickup options for online orders.
