Instant Pickup Points from Amazon; deliveries in two minutes

Amazon’s latest venture to reach last-mile delivery has a new twist. The retail giant has launched Instant Pickup Points in the U.S. that allows deliveries within two minutes. The new feature is targeted at college students and the Pickup Points are located currently near five college campuses.

The Instant Pickup Points are aimed to reduce the delivery time from hours to minutes and thus reducing the waiting time. There are hundreds of items that are currently under the new feature. Some of these are phone chargers, snacks and drinks and other daily essentials that sell like hot cakes on Amazon.com.

Prime and Prime Student members can use Instant Pickup to order on impulse. There are currently five fully staffed locations at college campuses at Los Angeles, California; Atlanta, Georgia; Berkeley, California; Columbus, Ohio; and College Park, Maryland.

 At the launch of the new feature, Ripley MacDonald said, “I want to buy a can of coke because I’m thirsty. There’s no chance that I’m going to order that on Amazon.com and wait however long it’s going to take for that to ship to me. I can provide that kind of service here.”

There is also a reason that Amazon is targeting its launch at college students. Students at college campuses are one of the areas where traditional retail still has a leg up on Amazon’s online model. Although it is currently at only five major college campuses, Amazon will be expanding to additional sites including neighborhood spots within cities by the end of the year.

Amazon has again set out new levels in the competition. Companies like Best Buy and Staples will suffer a blow as these were the places that students would go to for immediate supplies.