It's amazing to see the growth of Amazon implementing same-day delivery programs in most of the major US cities already with more to come. What makes its' service so competitive is that it is for free. Other well-known retailers, be it web-based or brick-and-mortar, have their various fees for their services. However, its' going to take some ingenuity to topple Amazon.

The Chicago Tribune recently announced that Amazon expanded its' free same-day delivery service into Chicago and Orlando last week, adding to the already 14 same-day markets in the US. Those cities include San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle-Tacoma, San Diego, Phoenix, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Indianapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, Washington DC, and Atlanta. Making the service free began in 14 Los Angeles metropolitan cities earlier this year and the other cities will probably follow.

A spokeswoman stated in the article that the free same-day delivery in Chicago will extend north to Evanston and Arlington Heights, south to Oak Lawn and west to Glen Ellyn and Downers Grove. This will be a big move and makes sense for Amazon being that Chicago is a popular city for holiday shopping. The coverage area for Orlando was not mentioned.

Same-day delivery will be free for all prime member orders placed over $35. Although Amazon's online Prime catalog offers 20 million items for shoppers, the current free service only includes 1 million of them. Time will tell, yet more than likely, this will grow the more and more established the service gets. All orders placed by 12 noon, will be delivered by 9pm the same day. All orders placed after 12 noon, will be delivered the following day.

The fulfillment centers for Amazon have been the key for its' growth, which act as localized warehousing in order to generate fast deliveries. This is the same model for big name physical store retailers that are competing against Amazon. For example, department store leader Macy's launched same-day delivery starting last year and fulfilled its' online orders from actual store locations. In that regard, delivering same day is very viable.

As Macy's jumped into same-day delivery, Kohl's decided this year to dive in head first as well. It recently added six more major US cities to its' same-day delivery list, which included Los Angeles, Boston, Brooklyn/Queens, Northern New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Miami. Kohl's was already offering same-day delivery in Chicago, as well as in San Francisco and in the Bay Area. Therefore, the retailer is gearing more towards providing same-day delivery in as many feasible US cities as possible for the upcoming holiday season.

Online shopping continually increases every year and retailers know it. During the biggest shopping season of the year, e-commerce sales are expected to increase 13.9% in November and December, and an overall increase of 5.6% during the same time frame. To keep up with Google, Amazon and more, A lot of retailers are partnering with a Same-Day Courier like A-1 Express in order to offer same-day delivery too. The Chicago Courier supplies the same-day logistics solutions and the driver delivery expertise, performing the actual service too.

Reference: 10.21.15, www.chicagotribune.com, Meg Graham, Amazon brings free same-day delivery to Chicago