Coronavirus News: Amazon Orders Delayed As Long As A Month During COVID-19 Pandemic

Last week, Amazon (AMZN) announced that it was prioritizing shipments from its fulfillment centers to only include essentials such as medical supplies and household items as the coronavirus pandemic wages on. Now, non-essential items are being delayed as long as a month, according to posts circulating social media.

These social media posts have indicated that non-essential items have delivery dates as far out as April 21, despite being listed as in-stock and able to ship with Amazon’s Prime service, Recode reported. Amazon Prime orders traditionally ship in one to two days.

An Amazon spokesperson confirmed to Recode the new delivery status, saying “To serve our customers in need while also helping to ensure the safety of our associates, we’ve changed our logistics, transportation, supply chain, purchasing, and third-party seller processes to prioritize stocking and delivering items that are a higher priority for our customers. This has resulted in some of our delivery promises being longer than usual.”

The increase in online demand shows the dependence that consumers have on Amazon, which has limited non-essential items into its fulfillment centers until early April. While independent merchants may still ship items directly, Amazon is only taking deliveries of health and household goods and medical supplies.

To keep up with the demand, Amazon is looking to hire 100,000 workers at its fulfillment centers.

It was unclear at the time of writing how Amazon plans to handle its Prime memberships as it no longer offers expedited shipping on non-essential products. Amazon Prime does, however, come with benefits such as video and music streaming, which may be keeping people entertained during self-isolation.

Shares of Amazon stock were down 0.32% as of 9:46 a.m. EDT on Monday.