Amazon ends Instant Pickup in favor of a new pickup service

Amazon quietly ended its Instant Pickup
offering.
Amazon

• Amazon
  announced Instant Pickup in August 2017, offering instant
  purchasing much like
  a vending machine.
• It started with five Pickup locations and announced plans to
  expand.
• Amazon has now quietly ended the program, a company
  spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider. 
• Amazon
  is still keeping and expanding the Pickup locations, which now
  have the same functionality without the instant offering.

A year ago, Amazon debuted a new way to pick up items within
minutes of ordering them, calling it Instant Pickup. 

Customers could order items like snacks, drinks, and basic
essentials from the Amazon app and use a barcode to access their
purchase at designated Pickup locations. An Amazon employee would
fill an Instant Pickup locker within minutes of the order being
placed.

However, Amazon has pulled the plug on the service, a company
spokesperson has confirmed to Business Insider. The company did
not specify when the service ended.

The service was designed for impulse, need-it-now purchases. It
used Amazon Pickup locations that were already in operation for
traditional pickups. When the service was announced in August
2017, it was available at five Pickup locations, including
college campuses, and announced plans to expand to more.

Instant Pickup made the Pickup locations more like a store than
just a receiving center. It was like a large vending
machine with a staff of one. 

The cancellation of the rollout is a rare step back for the
retailer, which has
been going full-steam ahead on opening physical locations. It
continues to open Amazon Books stores and pop-up locations, and
it recently opened a
new store concept called Amazon 4-star. It’s possible that
Instant Pickup was just an experiment that did not turn out the
way Amazon hoped it would.

Instead of Instant Pickup, Amazon is focusing on its Pickup
locations, which allow customers to pick up and drop off items to
be returned. The centers also offer free, same-day pickup on some
locations for Prime members, but that’s the fastest Amazon is
offering now that Instant Pickup has been rolled back. 

When
Business Insider tested the Pickup location, we found it easy
and simple to use, but limited in functionality.