Amazon delivered at its fastest speeds ever for Prime members globally in 2025, with more than 13 billion items arriving the same or next day. Through a combination of technological innovation, strategic facility placement, and specialized delivery methods, the company is setting new standards for speed and convenience.
Here are eight ways Amazon is innovating to deliver quickly for customers.
1. Adding items to upcoming deliveries
With a single tap, Prime members in the United States can now instantly add eligible items from across Amazon—everything from pantry staples to pet toys, electronics, clothing, books, and more—to upcoming deliveries. This feature, “Add to Delivery,” makes shopping on the Amazon Shopping app or Amazon.com on mobile devices even more convenient. U.S. customers have used this feature more than 50 million times.
2. Stocking items closer to the customers who need them
Advanced logistics technology and demand forecasting allow Amazon to stock a wide variety of popular products within sites that bring together the full journey of an order.
These sites are located closer to customers in inner-city and residential areas so Amazon can reach them on the same day, even if they place orders as late as 5 p.m., making Same-Day even faster.
This approach to stocking and delivering products to accelerate Same-Day Delivery is already being used across the U.S. and globally, across London, Madrid, Munich, Berlin and, Milan, with plans to bring it to more than 25 locations across Europe this year, including smaller cities and towns such as Coventry in the UK and Nürnberg in Germany.
3. Bringing fast delivery to rural America
Amazon is investing over $4 billion to triple the size of its delivery network by the end of 2026, with a special focus on small towns and rural communities in the U.S. The company is expanding Same-Day and Next-Day delivery to over 4,000 smaller cities and towns across the country by the end of 2025, transforming how rural customers shop online. This expansion includes transforming existing rural delivery stations into hybrid hubs that store inventory on-site, enabling delivery within hours.
4. Delivering medications within hours (and minutes through kiosks)
Amazon Pharmacy has launched Same-Day Delivery of prescription medications in over a dozen major cities U.S. including New York, Los Angeles, Austin, Indianapolis, Miami, Phoenix, the greater Detroit area, and Seattle.
The service uses small-format pharmacies stocked with commonly prescribed medications and integrated into Amazon’s logistics network. In 2025, it also announced kiosks to deliver medications within minutes of an appointment at One Medical offices, beginning in Los Angeles.
5. Using specialized delivery vehicles for different environments
Amazon customizes its delivery methods based on local conditions: E-cargo bikes deliver packages quickly through congested streets in dense cities like Amsterdam or Munich and make up the majority of Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market grocery deliveries in Manhattan.
Rivian’s custom electric delivery vans are across the U.S. and Germany, mules travel across rocky terrain in the Grand Canyon, drones bring customers their orders in nine U.S. states, and wooden boats bring supplies to shoppers on quiet islands off the Maine coast. This tailored approach helps ensure fast delivery in each environment.
6. Building sustainable Same-Day Delivery sites
Amazon is demonstrating that speed and sustainability can go hand in hand: A Same-Day Delivery site in Sacramento, California, became North America’s first fulfillment center to earn Zero Carbon Certification from Living Future. The facility delivers packages to customers within five hours while incorporating sustainability initiatives like all-electric HVAC systems, white roofs that reduce energy use, and solar panel infrastructure that, once fully installed and operational, is expected to generate up to 80% of the building’s electricity.
7. Streamlining pharmacy operations with robotics and AI
Amazon Pharmacy uses AI and robotics to speed up prescription processing. Generative AI helps clarify and validate information from handwritten or online prescriptions, while robotic arms assist in filling, labeling, and sending prescriptions for pharmacist inspection—reducing handling time from three minutes to just 30 seconds. This technology allows pharmacists to focus on patient care rather than administrative tasks, contributing to faster medication delivery.
8. Expanding Same-Day perishable grocery delivery
Customers in parts of London can now order fresh, perishable groceries for Same-Day Delivery—alongside household essentials and everything else they shop for on Amazon. This latest development follows Same-Day Delivery of fresh groceries launching in parts of Tokyo in late April and rolling it out to more than 2,300 cities and towns across the U.S. late last year.
Looking to the future, we'll be expanding Same-Day Delivery of fresh groceries to additional London and Tokyo postcodes, to more areas in the UK and Japan in the coming months, and to additional countries as well.
Next, learn about Amazon’s newest innovation: Smart glasses designed to enhance the delivery experience.
