It’s not often that cities such as Waco, TX, and Columbus, OH, can stand eye-to-eye with Los Angeles and New York. . But they all now have one thing in common: Residents of those cities can all get their Amazon orders delivered on Sunday.
Amazon.com Inc., No. 1 in the newly published Internet Retailer 2014 Top 500 Guide, says it has expanded its Sunday deliveries to 15 cities, including the Ohio college town and state capital along with the Brazos River community in central Texas where Dr Pepper was first sipped in 1885.
In November, the web-only merchant launched its Sunday delivery service to the top two metro areas in the United States by population, New York and Los Angeles. Amazon negotiated a contract with the U.S. Postal Service for those deliveries. The service is for packages that weigh up to 70 pounds.
At the time of the November launch, a USPS spokeswoman said Amazon was the only retailer to have done so, though USPS did not immediately respond to a request for comment today. USPS has 105 clients in the Top 500, according to Top500Guide.com, up from 98 last year. UPS has 176, up from 161. FedEx has 144, up from 137.
“So far, the most common items delivered on Sunday include baby supplies such as newborn apparel, books and toys—Sunday delivery is clearly crossing errands off the weekend to-do list,” says Mike Roth, Amazon’s vice president of North America operations. “We know our Amazon customers love the convenience of everyday delivery, and we’re excited to be offering Sunday delivery in more cities across the U.S.”
Besides Columbus and Waco—and New York and Los Angeles—the other Sunday-delivery cities are:
• Austin, TX
• Cincinnati, OH
• College Station, TX
• Dallas, TX
• Houston, TX
• Indianapolis, IN
• Lexington, KY
• Louisville, KY
• New Orleans, LA
• Oklahoma City, OK
• Philadelphia, PA
• San Antonio, TX
• Shreveport, LA
Amazon would not explain why it selected those cities over others, though a spokeswoman says the e-retailer will expand the program to a “large portion” of the U.S. population this year. “Sunday delivery is an innovation we’ve been working on for some time,” she says. “The material handling solutions, infrastructure resources and customized technology required to launch Sunday delivery with the Postal Service at such a large scale was a labor of love.”
Amazon collects sales taxes in the following states where it also does Sunday deliveries: Texas, New York, California, Indiana, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. It does not collect sales taxes in these states where it will newly offer Sunday deliveries: Oklahoma, Ohio and Louisiana.