I'll have the new Harry Potter, a Calvin Klein watch and... Three boxes of Special K?

at Wednesday, June 13, 2007

As mad as it may seem, Amazon(.com) has come a long way from its origins of hard- and paper back books. For a long time it's sold electronics, watches, healthcare items, later expanding into home and garden products, and even jewellery and clothing.

I received an interesting email from Amazon Associates this morning, though... And when I clicked through from the email, I was greeted with this:

Somehow, the beta label diffuses the weirdness somewhat. Now I've seen everything...

So, grocery? This was something I, honestly, didn't expect. I'm not overly shocked by their decision, I suppose it's only natural. Look, see for yourself - I'm not kidding. This is what Amazon itself says about this new service:

We offer more than 22,000 non-perishable grocery items--and [their] selection is growing every day
We can ship all products for free, via Super Saver Shipping, Amazon Prime, or free standard shipping
We have great everyday prices plus special offers on your favorite brands
We make it exceptionally easy to find products you buy routinely, or to discover new items we think you'll like

It looks like they're serious about this! The list of items they sell is huge; from baby food to canned fruit, cereals, pet supplies, herbs and seasoning, even pet food. Some of the ready meals ('boxed meals'? How quaint) have made me mighty hungry to boot, so I'll be diving into the kitchen shortly to warm up the other half of last night's dinner (because being a student, I always cook for two nights then stick the next night's worth in the fridge!)

I'm a UK resident so Amazon Grocery hasn't quite made its way across the pond yet. However, I'm sure that when it does, I'll be one of the first to give it a spin and see how it fares. I'm not entirely sure what'd happen if I ordered a book and some Coco Pops in one go though - would they just squash the cereal into one of those book-sized cardboard packages?

What about if I ordered mayonnaise? Hmm...

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What else does Christopher do?

As well as this site, the most recent creation to crawl from my subconscious, I also spend my time writing on my personal blog (not always safe for work, it is very much my thoughts as they come out so beware!)

When I'm doing work proper, I'm a cross-media designer, systems analyst, solutions provider and general on-call geek for my company, based in the Birmingham area. As an aside, I also provide custom web hosting solutions for people who want a solution that's a little more personal (and cost-effective).

In the rest of my spare time, every so often I tap new entries into other sites of mine: The Uniblog, About Brum, this blog's companion Tumblog... Loads of sites!

Since moving to the fair city of Birmingham, I've increasingly found it a rich, detailed place to live, and eventually I decided to start blogging about it. Thus was born About Brum, and slowly but surely I'm chipping away at the latest development for it - podcasts highlighting one aspect of the city or the region in depth. Lots more work to do on those, but they should be great when they're finished.