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Amazon Now Reaches 120 Cities: Ultra-Fast Delivery Doubles in Two Weeks

Posted on 4th Oct 2026 12:12:16 in Business, Digital Marketing

Tagged as: Amazon Now, Ultra-Fast Delivery, Quick Commerce India, Small Sellers, Festive Season, E-Commerce

Amazon has quietly turned its quickest delivery experiment into a nationwide service. Amazon Now, the company's ultra-fast delivery arm, is now live in more than 120 Indian cities — a footprint that doubled in just two weeks — as the e-commerce giant positions itself for the festive shopping season. The timing matters: the Amazon Great Indian Festival sale begins on October 8, and Amazon has been building capacity for months to handle the demand.

For small sellers, D2C brands and neighbourhood shops, the expansion is more than a headline. It changes where customers expect to find everyday products, how fast they expect them to arrive, and which channels are worth a seller's time and inventory. Here is what Amazon has built, and what it means for your business.

Inside the Numbers: What Amazon Now Looks Like Today

The scale of the rollout is striking. Amazon Now is available in cities including Amritsar, Abohar, Jalandhar, Ambala, Mangaluru, Manipal, Visakhapatnam, Kochi, Changanassery, Bhubaneswar and Karwar, the company said — a mix of metros, tier-two towns and smaller cities that has grown rapidly from its original launch markets.

Behind the service sits a network of nearly 800 micro-fulfilment and urban fulfilment centres. That is up from roughly 100 centres a year ago, according to CNBC-TV18, which spoke to Harsh Goyal, Vice President of Everyday Essentials at Amazon India. Goyal said the team "moved much faster than our internal plans" and surpassed an internal target of 100 cities by Diwali.

The demand numbers explain the urgency:

  • Orders on Amazon Now are doubling every quarter.
  • Daily orders are rising about 20 per cent month on month.
  • The service crossed a $1 billion annualised gross sales run rate in July.
  • The average order value is around Rs 550, with perishables accounting for nearly half of all orders.

Amazon is not stopping at 120 cities. The company is targeting more than 300 cities by the end of 2026, and says it is prioritising cities based on the density of Prime customers. The product mix spans groceries, fresh fruits and vegetables, frozen food, personal care, fashion and beauty, small appliances, and home and kitchen goods — tens of thousands of products that reach customers within minutes or a few hours.

The wider logistics build-out supports the push. Ahead of the festive season, Amazon added 20 fulfilment centres, six sort centres and 150 last-mile delivery stations, lifting its total storage capacity by 50 per cent to 64 million cubic feet. Much of that investment is aimed at tier-two and tier-three cities — exactly where Amazon Now is now expanding.

Why Ultra-Fast Delivery Is the New Battleground

Amazon Now is the company's answer to India's quick commerce wave. Platforms such as Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy Instamart and Flipkart Minutes have conditioned urban customers to expect grocery and everyday essentials within 10 to 30 minutes, and the category has grown from a metro experiment into a national race.

For Amazon, ultra-fast delivery also protects its core marketplace. If customers buy daily essentials — groceries, snacks, personal care — on quick commerce apps, that habit spills over into other categories. By pushing Amazon Now into more than 120 cities before the festive season, the company keeps those customers inside its own app, where its full catalogue sits one tap away.

There is a festive angle, too. During the Great Indian Festival starting October 8, Amazon plans to offer products and deals through Amazon Now itself. Festive shopping has traditionally meant planned purchases — electronics, fashion, gifts — but Amazon is betting that customers will also fill their grocery carts while they shop the sale. The company's own numbers point that way: groceries and perishables make up the largest share of Amazon Now orders.

The competitive pressure runs both ways. Quick commerce platforms are expanding into more categories and more cities, and every platform is signing up local sellers and brands to keep its shelves full. That competition gives small businesses more places to sell — but it also raises the bar on speed, stock availability and packaging.

What the Expansion Means for Small Sellers and D2C Brands

If you sell on Amazon — or you are planning to — the most immediate effect of the Amazon Now expansion is geographic. Sellers in categories like packaged foods, personal care, beauty, small appliances and home essentials can now be discovered by customers in more than 120 cities, including smaller towns where quick commerce was barely present a year ago.

The numbers also tell sellers what kind of business Amazon Now is. With an average order value of about Rs 550 and perishables making up roughly half of orders, this is a high-frequency, low-basket channel. Success here is about repeat purchases, tight stock rotation and products that sell every week — not about a few big-ticket items.

For D2C brands, Amazon Now is a test of operational discipline. Products must arrive at micro-fulfilment centres, carry adequate shelf life, and be packaged to survive a minutes-delivery journey. Brands that get this right earn something precious: a place in a customer's weekly routine. Brands that treat quick commerce as just another listing usually get lost among the tens of thousands of products competing for the same screen.

Neighbourhood shops and kirana stores face a more complicated picture. Ultra-fast delivery brings the quick commerce contest closer to their doorstep in smaller cities. At the same time, local stores hold assets the platforms want — proximity, local knowledge and existing customer relationships. Many kiranas have already started working as pick-up points, dark-store partners or local suppliers for these networks. The sensible response is to decide deliberately where you fit: compete on personal service and relationships, or plug into the platforms as a partner.

Five Practical Moves for Small Businesses This Festive Season

Here is a short playbook you can act on this month:

  • Check your city and category. The service is being rolled out city by city and prioritised by Prime customer density. Open the Amazon shopping app, look for the "Now" section, and see whether your city and product category are covered. If they are, your customers are already there.
  • Review your fast-moving SKUs. Focus on the products that sell every week — daily essentials, snacks, personal care, small household items. Amazon Now is not the channel for slow-moving inventory.
  • Fix your unit economics. With average orders around Rs 550, delivery and packaging costs matter enormously. Check your margins at small basket sizes before you price for quick commerce.
  • Plan for the festive calendar. The Great Indian Festival begins on October 8. If you sell on Amazon or through quick commerce partners, lock your stock, packaging and logistics support now — festive demand rewards sellers who are ready early and punishes those who are not.
  • Keep your own channels strong. Your website, WhatsApp Business lists and local delivery options are the assets you control. Use quick commerce platforms where they fit, but keep your own customer relationships — they are the part of your business no platform can switch off.

What to Watch Next

Amazon says Amazon Now will reach more than 300 cities by the end of 2026, which means the competitive map will keep moving through the festive season and beyond. Watch three things: how quickly rival quick commerce platforms match the 120-city footprint in smaller towns, whether sellers outside the metros see real order growth, and how Amazon's Rs 550 average order value evolves as the service reaches new customers.

For now, the signal for small businesses is clear. Ultra-fast delivery has moved out of the big-city bubble and into the mainstream of Indian retail. Whether you sell packed snacks in Jalandhar or home appliances in Kochi, the customer expectation of "minutes, not days" is arriving in your market — and the businesses that prepare for it early will be the ones who benefit most.

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