Amazon continues to increase the speed with which it can get deliveries to customers, announcing Tuesday that it increased the number of items delivered in the U.S. on the same day or overnight by more than 65% year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Overall, Amazon said it reached its fastest global delivery speeds to Prime members ever in 2023, with more than 7 billion units arriving the same or next day, including more than 4 billion in the U.S. and more than 2 billion in Europe.
In a post about the news, Doug Herrington, CEO of Amazon Worldwide Stores, laid out how the e-commerce giant is reaching such milestones — and planning to get even faster in 2024.
Herrington said the company is focused on shortening the distance deliveries need to travel to reach customers; improving inventory placement; and building out Same-Day Delivery service.
Same-Day Delivery sites are part fulfillment center, part delivery station, according to the company, allow Amazon to fulfill, sort, and deliver products from one location. Nine new dedicated sites serving 18 additional U.S. cities were added over the course of the year, and Amazon now offers Same-Day Delivery in more than 110 U.S. metro areas.
Amazon’s shift to regional fulfillment centers across the country, with a broad selection of items, reduces cross-country shipments and the number of stops per package after orders are placed.
Herrington also gave a shout-out to Sequoia, a warehouse robotics system designed to increase process time for items. It’s also part of a broader effort by the company to use robotics to improve warehouse safety, amid growing scrutiny of injuries and safety practices at Amazon’s fulfillment, sortation, and delivery facilities.
And the company continues to work on its Prime Air drone delivery, citing its fastest click-to-delivery time in the fourth quarter of 2023 — a box of Annie’s Cocoa and Vanilla Bunny Cookies dropped in 15 minutes, 29 seconds in College Station, Texas. Last October, the company made its first prescription medication delivery via drone.
Amazon reports first-quarter earnings on Thursday.
