Amazon recently created a blog post revealing that it set new Prime delivery speeds for 2025. The company delivered more than 13 billion items same-day or next-day during the year, many of them groceries and essentials.
It’s clear that Amazon is prioritizing delivery speed, which makes sense as it’s one of the most important factors that goes into online shoppers deciding where to buy their products.
Amazon Delivery Speed Reaches a New High for the Third Consecutive Year
In the blog post, Amazon announced that deliveries to Prime members around the world were faster than ever before in 2025, which makes 2025 the third consecutive year the company increased its delivery speeds. In fact, there was a 70% year-over-year increase in the number of items that Amazon delivered in less than a day.
The company revealed that 13 billion items arrived either the same day or the next day around the world. In the USA alone, 8 billion items arrived either same-day or next-day, which is a 30% increase over 2024. While all sorts of products were delivered at these speeds, groceries and everyday essentials made up around half of the total items.
This makes sense, as eGrocery sales hit a record high of $12.7 billion in December 2025, with Amazon likely being one of the largest contributors to that amount.
The Drivers of This Growth
The company also outlined many of the factors that may have led to this growth in Prime delivery speeds. First, the company significantly expanded its geographic reach for same-day and next-day deliveries.
In fact, it’s available in over 4,000 smaller cities and towns across 44 states. Amazon also said the response from customers in these areas has been strong, as the number of monthly same-day customers in rural areas doubled in 2025 compared to 2024.
Amazon also noted that it increased perishable grocery selection in the company’s same-day delivery service to make it easier for people to pick up more of their groceries on the platform. Similarly, it also expanded same-day prescription delivery to speed up the delivery of medication to customers.
The company also expanded the Amazon Now 30-minute delivery service to areas like Mexico, India, and the UAE, while also testing it in the USA and UK. Finally, Amazon also used AI models to forecast the types of products to stock across its network to better meet customers’ local needs.
Importance of Delivery Speed
There’s no doubt that Amazon is prioritizing delivery speed as much as possible, which is no surprise, as it’s very important to ecommerce customers. In fact, research shows that 58% of people say that fast and reliable shipping is one of the most important elements of online shopping.
If your brand is looking to follow in Amazon’s footsteps and increase delivery speed, some ways you can speed up your shipments include:
- Automating your order processing.
- Using advanced picking techniques (like batch, zone, or wave) to help make your warehouse more efficient.
- Considering storing inventory in multiple regional centers if possible, to keep items closer to their final destination. You can do this by having multiple locations yourself or working with third-party logistics (3PL) companies.
- Working with multiple shippers/carriers, so you always have options and can choose the fastest for each shipment.
- Using technology to improve route planning to ensure drivers always take the optimal path.
Of course, while getting your customers the items they buy quickly is important for loyalty and satisfaction, don’t forget about delivery costs. Just as many customers are willing to pay more to get items quickly, others are willing to wait a few days if it means getting cheap or free delivery.
As a result, try to find the proper balance between delivery speed and cost that your customers resonate the most with, or consider offering multiple shipping options.
