Amazon is once again dialing up its speed and convenience. At its Delivering the Future event, the company announced three major changes making it faster, easier and more consolidated to order Prime deliveries: a one-tap Add to Delivery for combining orders together, a unified cart bringing perishable groceries into Same-Day with everyday items, and expanding Pharmacy Same-Day, supported by AI and self-driving delivery services. Here’s what changed, and why it matters for your doorstep.
Add to Delivery turns ‘oops’ moments into one shipment
Forget batteries after purchasing a new flashlight? Now with Prime, members can Add to Delivery and include eligible items in one of their upcoming shipments instead of placing a new order. The feature, which quietly started rolling out in early October, has already been accessed over 50 million times, Amazon said.
And this isn’t about convenience; it’s about logistics. Packing last-minute shipments together reduces duplicate packaging, eliminates multiple stops for drivers and increases on-time delivery rates — particularly when customers use Amazon Day to select a preferred delivery date. The Environmental Protection Agency has long emphasized the contribution of containers and packaging to household waste; reducing the number of boxes with a little bundling can have a noticeable effect at scale.
It also reflects how people actually shop — a little at a time. The idea was inspired by strong customer response any time language suggested “add to your upcoming delivery,” according to Amazon. Transforming that sentiment into a dedicated button folds impulse and forgotten items into the same route without stalling your main order.
Same-Day groceries: one cart now handles all items
Amazon’s Same-Day Delivery isn’t just for phone chargers and shampoo anymore. Its perishable groceries — produce, dairy, meat, seafood and frozen items — now coexist in the same shopping cart as nonperishables, and can arrive in hours where Same-Day is available. No more bouncing back and forth between a separate store experience or trying to manage two checkouts.
The change is underpinned by a temperature-controlled fulfillment network, with cold chain handling so strawberries stay cold and your HDMI cable stays dry, the company says. Early order patterns show fresh items — think berries and Honeycrisp apples — exploding among top Same-Day unit movers, suggesting shoppers have a very quick trigger when friction is removed.
This tactic hits just right with consumer behavior. Insider Intelligence and McKinsey’s research has consistently found groceries to be among the most time-sensitive online categories, with repeat purchase heavily swayed by convenience and speed. Including perishables in the same hot-and-fast doorstep-delivery system as general merchandise is just the kind of tweak that can drive habit, not one-off trial.
Pharmacy prescriptions now eligible for same-day delivery
Amazon Pharmacy is rolling out Same-Day delivery to more than a dozen metropolitan areas including New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Miami, Phoenix, Austin, Indianapolis and Greater Detroit, with the goal of serving nearly half of U.S. customers by the end of 2025. That delivers routine medications — antibiotics, blood pressure treatments, inhalers — to your doorstep the same day a prescription is filed.
Behind the scenes, Amazon says it’s relying on artificial intelligence and robotics to speed up order fulfillment. Generative AI is used to help verify prescription details in hard-to-read handwriting, while robotic systems can sort and package drugs. While pharmacist oversight is still the nub, automation shaves minutes off the time between approval and a courier’s arrival.
The timing matters. Health systems and pharmacy groups like the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy have picked up on claims about adherence and access — when medications arrive quickly, particularly predictably quickly, it’s easier to begin therapy on time. When it comes to chronic conditions, consistency of delivery can be as crucial as price.
Why Amazon’s latest delivery upgrades matter for shoppers
Amazon says 2025 will see the speediest Prime delivery times in its history. The three upgrades announced today are the infrastructure moves that make that promise credible: fewer split shipments from Add to Delivery, fewer cart silos with unified grocery Same-Day, and less pharmacy lag due to localized hubs and automation.
They are also a boon to the last mile. Consolidation removes redundant miles and missed deliveries; the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics has found that consolidated, bundled e-commerce routes can reduce emissions relative to multiple separate trips. That means fewer porch visits for consumers to handle and more predictable windows.
There is a competitive angle as well. Big-box competitors have focused strongly on curbside and same-day models. By cramming household restock, fresh groceries and prescription runs into a single fast workflow, Amazon is wagering that convenience will win out over channel hopping. If adoption matches early indicators, look for the “forgot one thing” button and the “groceries in hours” promise to become routines as entrenched as two-day shipping once was.
