Today, Amazon announced that it's expanding its Prime Now one-hour delivery service to Milwaukee. No word yet on whether or not it will use drones or teleportation or cuddly Yetis to get you the goods so quickly, for $7.99.
Two-hour delivery will be free via the Prime Now service, details of which are here. Both options are available only to Amazon Prime members.
When it comes to books, I prefer to do my own less-than-one-hour run to Boswell Book Co., but I can see where Prime Now could come in handy when I need something quickly that Boswell or another local retailer doesn't have on hand.
In most cases, I rarely need something within an hour or two, but for folks who use Amazon for a wider variety of products, it could come in handy, since the super-fast delivery option is available for everything from milk to diapers to Kindles and beyond.
I think of this as an emergency service, but Amazon is branding it more as a time-saving convenience.
"Not only does Prime Now offer customers convenient delivery of tens of thousands of items, the service is really about giving time back to Prime members to do the things they really want," said Stephenie Landry, vice president of Prime Now worldwide, in a news release.
"Sometimes you don’t have time to make it to the store or maybe you just don’t want to. Prime Now is your one-stop shop for everything from cereal to pet food to an Amazon Echo all delivered right to your door with free two-hour delivery."
The $7.99, one-day delivery is available from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m., seven days a week, in Milwaukee, which is now one of more than 30 U.S. cities offering the service.
This is definitely a potentially handy option; just please remember your local retailer, too.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
