Amazon Quietly Debuts Online Grocery

Amazon took baby steps into the realm of online groceries, offering only non-perishable goods and free shipping to anywhere in the United States. The company offers a total of about 10,000 items, and features such as a shopping list, product recommendations and savings opportunities for bulk buys.

Perishable goods are not offered through the service, as Amazon said it would not be able to ship those items for free. The company gave no possible time frame as to when -- and if -- it would offer those products.

Fitting in with its business model, Amazon pledged to keep prices low through a variety of methods. "For example, items you purchase might come in larger packs than you see at a traditional grocery store, and we might ship a product in a manufacturer's original case," the company said on its Web site.

The service was quietly introduced as a beta without much fanfare on May 25. Amazon said that a grocery service was something that its customers had asked for in future stores.

Nationwide online grocery shopping has been attempted in the past, most notably in the late 1990s during the Internet boom. Investors poured millions into such services, however the majority went belly up in 2001 following the tech crash, or became regional providers.

That has not stopped local grocers from offering such services. Companies such as Safeway and SuperValu have begun to experiment with online shopping.