The news: Amazon Business is expanding into perishable groceries—such as dairy, produce, and baked goods—through its same-day delivery service in more than 2,300 US cities and towns. Orders are delivered within scheduled windows, allowing customers to receive and store items while fresh.

• The move enables Amazon to offer business customers a broader selection to meet a wider range of needs—from bagels and cream cheese for meetings to half-and-half for the coffee bar—alongside the paper goods and supplies it already provides.
• The service uses Amazon’s existing same-day and local fulfillment network, with deliveries handled by Amazon Flex drivers.

Why it matters: Amazon is positioning the expansion as a way to simplify procurement. Instead of employees making store runs and filing reimbursements, businesses can centralize spending, save time, and give procurement teams better visibility into their purchases. At the same time, the move should help Amazon capture a larger share of business spending.

The strategy mirrors its consumer playbook. After Amazon folded perishables into same-day delivery, perishable sales jumped more than 40 times YoY and accounted for nine of the top 10 most-ordered same-day items. More importantly, shoppers who bought perishables became more valuable, building larger baskets, adding nearly three times as many items, and spending more than 80% more per order.

While business needs differ from consumer behavior, Amazon is betting those same dynamics—convenience and basket expansion—will translate.

Implications for brands and marketers: Amazon is on a relentless push to find new ways to grow revenues, and adding perishables to Amazon Business is low-hanging fruit that’s ripe for the picking. Given its success using perishables to boost order frequency and basket size on the consumer front, the move could help Amazon Business steal share from warehouse clubs like Costco and Sam’s Club, as well as distributors like Sysco and US Foods.

Amazon Business is a fast-growing $42.14 billion business, per our forecast. As it expands, it becomes increasingly important for brands to be present and visible within its ecosystem—especially as purchasing shifts to centralized procurement teams rather than individual employees. That raises the importance of retail media investment.

Brands also need to ensure their products can be easily bundled into routine orders, where convenience and reliability matter as much as price.