Rapid grocery delivery service Amazon Now continues London push as another fulfilment site goes live

Amazon Now has launched a fourth site in London, building on go lives in Lewisham and Battersea and a debut during January of QLD1 - the service's first on demand delivery site in the UK.

This lets customers purchase thousands of everyday essentials, such as groceries and personal care items, that will be delivered within minutes. In India, it last year brought ten-minute delivery to Mumbai following launches in Bengaluru and Delhi, with 100+ micro-fulfilment centres operational.

In a LinkedIn post, Jay Kadu, Operational Specialist at Amazon, said: "Excited to be part of the launch of Amazon Quick Commerce’s new QLD4 London site. Joining as a Lead at this new site launch is truly a proud and prestigious moment for me. Grateful to be part of such a driven team and excited for the journey ahead with Amazon."

Whoosh vs Now

Tesco remains firmly in the rapid delivery game and is heavily pushing its Whoosh offering.

Motivated by a £5 off orders over £10 voucher, RTIH Editor and Founder, Scott Thompson, booked a delivery (£2.99 fee) recently, and was impressed by the easy to navigate and generally very well designed app, product selection, prices (Clubcard prices galore), a nifty real-time tracker, text updates, and the fact that delivery happened within 20 minutes of placing his order with all items in stock.

This is ultimately an excellent joined up omnichannel experience (Clubcard points for using Whoosh, don't mind if I do), both successfully replicating the in-store offering online and nailing the tricky art of quick commerce.

The same can't be said, however, for Amazon Now. Scott, who lives in the Lewisham area of London, also decided to take Amazon Now for a spin.

After placing an order (receiving free delivery on orders over £15 (limited time offer, standard fee £2) and choosing from a decent if unspectacular selection of Morrisons, by Amazon and branded products - pretty reasonable prices also - there's a Tesco Price Match and Big Savings section), he was informed that delivery would be within 23 minutes.

The order turned up (via bike) within 17 minutes and all products were in stock.

A second order was placed a day later, with delivery this time promised within 22 minutes. Somewhat confusingly, one item turned up within 16 minutes (a bottle of bleach) with the real-time tracker stating that the rest of the items would arrive via a different driver/cyclist a few minutes later.

The remainder of the order was then abruptly cancelled, with an email stating that “payment couldn't be completed. You won't be charged for the cancelled items. An issuing bank will often decline an attempt to charge a card if the name, expiry date, or post code you entered doesn't match the bank's information.

NB: there were sufficient funds in Scott’s account. A mixed bag, then, but we will give them the benefit of the doubt and put this down to teething issues. Work also needs to be done on the app layout (it's a bit all over the place, feels buried within the main Amazon app, and the real-time tracker could be easier to use).

Amazon has deep pockets so expect them to keep rolling Now out across London, but as things stand, it's hard to escape the nagging feeling that, much like physical stores, the US online giant just doesn't get the groceries game and never will.

2026 RTIH Innovation Awards

On demand delivery will be a key focus area at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards.

The awards are now open for entries and celebrate global retail technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.

Our winners will be revealed at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London on Wednesday, 4th November.

Check out our 2025 winners here.

Our 2025 hall of fame entrants were revealed during a sold out event which took place at The HAC on 16th October and consisted of a drinks reception, three course meal, and awards ceremony presided over by award winning comedian, actress and writer Tiff Stevenson.

In his welcome speech, Scott Thompson, Founder and Editor, RTIH, said: “This is the awards’ fifth year as a physical event. We started off with just 30 people at the South Place Hotel not far from here, then moved to London Bridge Hotel, then The Barbican, and last year RIBA’s HQ in the West End.”

“But I’m conscious of the fact that, to quote the legend that is Taylor Swift, You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby. So, this year we’ve moved to our biggest venue yet, and also pulled in our largest number of entries to date and broken attendance records.”

He added: “This year’s submissions have without doubt been our best yet. To quote one of the judges: The examples of innovative developments across both traditional and digital retail spaces were truly remarkable.”

Congratulations to our winners, and a big thank you to our sponsors, judging panel, the legend that is Tiff Stevenson, and all those who attended our 2025 gathering.