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Having changed the way consumers buy books, CDs and even electronics, Amazon.com has set its sights on its most ambitious project yet: groceries.
The online retailer is piloting AmazonFresh, which delivers fruit and veg and other perishables straight to your kitchen, taking it into a business that proved a graveyard for a host of lesser start-ups during the dot.com boom at the turn of the decade.
So far, AmazonFresh is being tested only in Mercer Island, a 22,000-strong enclave in Lake Washington, next to Seattle, but the company hopes to roll out to other cities. It has teamed up with local wholesalers and farmers to get its hands on enough produce to offer choice to consumers.
Amazon says it is responding to years of requests from customers that it start offering groceries, but the project is fraught with commercial danger.
Grocers work on hair-thin margins, and the perishable nature of the produce means it must buy just the right amount to satisfy demand, or face losing large sums through waste.
"When we feel we are ready to add more customers to the invite list and we can provide those customers with a great experience then we will do so," an Amazon spokesman said.
But he added there was no guarantee the project would go national, let alone international.
At the height of the dot.com frenzy, companies such as WebVan and Streamline opened their virtual doors only to shut down or be acquired by larger firms.
Webvan, for instance, boasted 750,000 customers in cities including San Francisco, but it burned through US$830 million ($1.08 billion) in two years before filing for bankruptcy protection in 2001.
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