With options ranging from one-hour to drone-based delivery, Amazon is working hard to keep its first-mover advantage and meeting consumer’s expectations in the burgeoning on-demand economy.

This fantastic article in the Telegraph is pure gold for BUSS4 students and looks at how Amazon is keeping ahead of its rivals and delivering what customers want, which is increasingly on the same day.

Amazon’s same-day delivery service, which applies to a limited pick of about 1m items, ranging from televisions to toys, is free to Prime members, who currently pay an annual £79 subscription fee for unlimited free shipping.

However, even if you haven’t signed up for the popular Prime service yet, you can get same-day delivery if you’re willing to pay £9.99 per order.

The e-tailer’s move follows the launch of its Prime Now app in June, which, even more ambitiously, offers Prime shopper’s deliveries within the hour for £6.99 on a range of products including frozen food and snacks such as Chicago Town pizzas, Birds Eye fish fingers and Ben & Jerry's ice-cream, edging towards the territory of UK grocers.

But, Amazon is not limiting itself to same-day deliveries by road; Amazon wants to speed the delivery process up even further by taking to the skies with Jeff Bezos believing that ‘One day Prime Air deliveries will be as common as seeing a mail truck’.

This is looking more like a reality after UK Transport Minister Robert Goodwill met with the Amazon Chief Executive to discuss the potential of test flying a Prime Air service which would use small aerial drones to get deliveries to customers within 30 minutes.

However, analysists are sceptical about Amazons ability to make Amazon Prime last in the long-term, citing the fact that Amazon has had to change its order cut-off time as well as increase the price of annual Prime membership in order to cover the increased cost of shipping

But, even if Amazon starts off by losing money on its pioneering delivery services, it can gain a first mover advantage over both its online and its offline competitors as new speedy delivery services slowly become habitual, just like free shipping has become ingrained in our online shopping expectations.