Amazon starts alcohol deliveries to Prime Now customers in Twin Cities

Amazon.com Inc. started delivery of beer, wine and liquor in the Twin Cities Thursday in partnership with Surdyk's Liquor & Cheese Shop, a fixture in northeast Minneapolis for eight decades.

By noon, the flow of orders had topped expectations and Amazon asked Surdyk's whether it could expand a limit Amazon had set of 40 per hour.

"I said yes," said Melissa Surdyk, a fourth-generation member of the founding family. "We have the people to help, and we've been able to pick [orders] quickly."

Two-hour deliveries are free to members of Amazon's $99-a-year Prime membership program. The company charges about $7.99 for an order delivered in one hour. Deliveries are available Monday to Saturday during Surdyk's operating hours.

The fees are similar to other items in the delivery service, which Amazon calls Prime Now. It began offering the delivery service in the Twin Cities last October for groceries, household essentials and some electronics items. In a statement announcing the Surdyk's relationship, Amazon said the most-popular items it has been delivering in the Twin Cities up to now through Prime Now have been orange juice, bananas and Haribo gummy bears.

When an Amazon customer places the order for Surdyk's, the store on Hennepin Avenue is alerted and an employee picks out the items, puts them in a bag and puts an Amazon sticker and code on it. "We've been picking up very fast, filling them within 10 minutes," Surdyk said. "The driver comes into the store with the code and takes the bag. We don't even see the address at all."

For Surdyk's, the relationship opens up access to about 250,000 members of Amazon's Prime loyalty program in the Twin Cities and adds another delivery choice for its existing customers.

Kian Salehi, co-founder of Bite Squad, said liquor delivery accounts for less than 5 percent of the company's work.

"The need for food far outweighs alcohol," he said, noting that beer and wine don't spoil and people tend to have backup supplies.

France 44, another large Minneapolis beer and wine seller, gets about 30 to 40 orders per week for deliveries via Bite Squad. "It's been a huge success for us," said Carin Mindel, the store's e-commerce manager.

As it enters the market for liquor deliveries in the Twin Cities, Amazon's edge is that its delivery costs are buried in the larger price of belonging to its membership program. Only customers who need something within an hour pay an extra fee. The internet retail giant is also an aggressive marketer, showing the Surdyk's merchandise to its Prime Now customers when they log in — and even alerting the media about the launch.

"Amazon does do a very good job with the marketing," Surdyk said. "This has been by far the best launch that we've had with any of the delivery companies we've worked with."

Evan Ramstad • 612-673-4241