Amazon already controls virtually every corner of the retail market—every corner except for one that is: America's grocery stores. But that may soon change, as they're planning to expand testing of a new online grocery delivery service.
The company's new branch, called AmazonFresh, has already been testing out consumer response in Seattle—for the past five years. And apparently the people liked what Amazon's fleet of food-delivery trucks were dropping on their doorsteps, because according to Reuters, the service will soon expand to cover both Los Angeles (this week) and the San Francisco Bay Area (later this year).
Then, if these locations seem to take to it, AmazonFresh could be hitting 20 major cities by 2014—including a few outside the United States. This could be bad news for current major grocery chains, who stand to lose business to Amazon's convenient, bulk-buying-in-one-click, human contact-less appeal. But even delivery services like UPS and FedEx could stand to hurt, since this means Amazon's fleet of trucks could very well soon be expanding nationwide.
Of course, all this depends on whether or not Seattle proves to be an isolated incident. But if it's not—expect an uproar. [Reuters]