Amazon (AMZN) , the greatly successful online shopping enterprise, has decided to expand into the grocery industry. The company plans on building small convenience stores that would sell milk, produce, meats and other perishable items that customers can take home. Using their phones, customers would be able to order items with longer shelf life for same day delivery.

The company will also begin to use “drive-in” locations where online grocery orders would be brought out to their customer’s cars. At the moment, the company is developing license plate reading technology for an even faster checkout.

These stores, known as Project Camo, are reserved exclusively for Amazon’s Fresh Subscription Service Customers. Amazon has recently dropped its annual price from $299 and placed $15 service fee available to its Prime Members.

The new stores are Amazon’s way of accessing the market of consumers that prefer fresh produce and other groceries, competing directly with discounters while targeting Walmart stores as well.

Entering the grocery industry is Amazon’s latest effort to access a new market, becoming the central location for shoppers and businesses. Amazon has also started exploring cloud computing as well as creating its own clothing, snacks, electronics, videogames, television shows, and movies.

The Seattle based company has been testing their Fresh Service for 6 years in 7 U.S cities and London since 2013.

Amazon is taking notes from discount retailers such Aldi and Lidl, that are successfully expanding across the country with their private label brands and their small number of employees.

The company plans to roll out these convenience stores within a year or more while it looks for the appropriate locations. In the meantime, Amazon is getting ready to launch its first drive-in grocery in its very own hometown, Seattle. Geekwire, an American technology news website that covers startups and established technology companies, discovered the documents that indicate Amazon being the company behind the storefront being built there. This “drive-in” grocery would allow scheduled customers a 15-minute to 2-hour window to arrive for pickup.

With all of these advances, the question builds itself: “What will Amazon come up with next?”.

Source:ABASTO