Amazon grocery sales outpace other items
Amazon grocery sales outpace other items with fast-track delivery fueling growth, increasing net sales by 20% year over year.
Amazon says groceries and essentials are growing “meaningfully faster” than the rest of its Stores business, according to its second‑quarter earnings release.
Fast‑track delivery fuels grocery growth
During the quarter that ended June 30, net sales topped $200 billion, a 20% rise from a year earlier. While Amazon Web Services powered most of the increase with a 36.7% jump, the online Stores segment also rose 15% year over year.
Chief Executive Andy Jassy highlighted record delivery speeds for Prime members and noted that “Grocery and Everyday Essentials [are] growing meaningfully faster than the rest of the business.” The company attributes much of that momentum to newer delivery options such as Amazon Now, which promises 30‑minute delivery on thousands of essential items.
Amazon Now debuted in May in major metros—including Atlanta, Dallas‑Fort Worth, Philadelphia and Seattle—and expanded to 80 additional U.S. cities and towns by the end of the quarter.
The service adds to the promise of “millions of items for same‑day delivery with Prime,” positioning the retailer against Walmart and Target.
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Prime Day timing helped amplify essential sales
Prime Day ran from June 23 to June 26, earlier than the usual mid‑July schedule. That shift allowed the company to capture the event’s sales within the second quarter rather than the third.
Third‑party data from Numerator showed shoppers used Prime Day to stock up on essentials, with top‑selling items including Premier protein shakes and Liquid I.V. packets. The average household spent $143.45 on the event, down from $156.37 a year earlier, suggesting consumers were buying more units but spending less overall as they focused on necessities.
These trends align with broader economic pressures. Inflation has pushed shoppers to stretch dollars further, making large‑scale sales events attractive venues for bulk purchases of everyday goods.
Amazon’s grocery push extends beyond Prime Day. At the start of 2025, Jason Beuchel took charge of the grocery division and oversaw the rollout of a same‑day service that lets customers order perishable and non‑perishable items together. He also integrated Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh teams, a move intended to streamline operations and broaden the product mix.
The number of monthly active customers for perishable items grew more than 50% since the start of the year. Same‑day orders containing perishables averaged over three times the units per order, and fresh groceries now appear in six of the top 20 best‑selling items on the site.
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Amazon Pharmacy also saw its customer base double in the first half of the year, adding another layer to the essential‑goods portfolio.
From an industry perspective, the shift toward rapid delivery of groceries and pharmacy items reflects a broader re‑balancing of retail. Brick‑and‑mortar chains have long relied on in‑store convenience, but the rise of ultra‑fast logistics erodes that advantage.
Revenue mix and future outlook
Overall, the quarter’s 20% sales growth was heavily weighted toward cloud services, yet the 15% rise in Stores revenue highlights a steady climb in consumer retail.
The firm plans to continue adding cities to the Amazon Now rollout.
Analysts will watch the next earnings report to see whether the “meaningfully faster” growth in groceries and essentials sustains its pace, especially as competition intensifies and consumer expectations for rapid fulfillment rise.
