Amazon has closed its first pantry delivery service

Now that Amazon has broadly integrated Whole Foods into its online shopping options, the online shopping giant is looking to cut some of its more redundant offerings by shutting down its Prime Pantry delivery service.

Launched in 2014, Prime Pantry was created to help people purchase non-perishable groceries or cleaning supplies in bulk using flat-rate, low-cost shipping (or free if you were a member of ‘Amazon Prime), with the caveat that all items must fit in one standard-size box.

Later in 2018, for anyone who was not an Amazon Prime subscriber, Amazon offered customers the option of paying $ 5 per month to subscribe to Amazon Pantry to avoid these flat shipping rates.

However, following the acquisition of Whole Foods by Amazon in 2017 and the expansion of the Prime Now and Amazon Fresh delivery options, it appears that Prime Pantry has become unnecessary and on Wednesday of this week Amazon decided to shutting down Prime Pantry for good.

In a statement made to Bloomberg, an Amazon spokesperson said, “As part of our commitment to providing the best possible customer experience, we have decided to move the Amazon Pantry selection to the main Amazon.com store so that customers can get products housework faster, with no additional subscription or purchase obligation. “

The Amazon spokesperson also said former Prime Pantry subscribers were notified of Prime Pantry’s upcoming shutdown in December and should have received refunds for unused subscription time.

Even though I sometimes liked to load a Prime Pantry box full of junk food before things like the Super Bowl, given the massive expansion of Amazon’s online shopping empire over the past few years, Prime Pantry probably had had to be deleted.