Amazon excludes several neighborhoods with high-minority populations from its Prime same-day delivery service, Bloomberg reported in a Thursday article. Bloomberg compared Amazon’s services with U.S. Census Bureau data and found that the company does not offer its service within predominantly black zip codes within six cities. In Boston, Amazon offers same-day delivery service to all neighborhoods — except Roxbury. That neighborhood is 59 percent black and 15 percent white, according to Bloomberg.
Prime members who live in these areas still pay $99 for free two-day shipping, but they do not receive same-day shipping on orders over $35.
Amazon says it focuses on areas where a large portion of the population has a Prime membership, but City Councilor Tito Jackson told The Boston Globe that he thinks Amazon’s exclusion of Roxbury was no accident.
“In … cities still struggling to overcome generations of racial segregation and economic inequality, black citizens are about half as likely to live in neighborhoods with access to Amazon same-day delivery as white residents,” Bloomberg reported.
An Amazon spokesperson told the Globe that same-day shipping boundaries are affected by “distance to the nearest fulfillment center, local demand in an area, numbers of Prime members in an area, as well as the ability of our various carrier partners to deliver up to 9:00 p.m. every single day, even Sunday.”
Amazon probably isn’t intentionally targeting cities based on their minority populations, but there‘s another factor at play here. When there’s a city councilor speaking on this subject, it has to be serious.
Because how much would it really cost to drive a couple of extra miles to Roxbury?
Amazon is mainly considering a liability if couriers were to travel to these places late at night. It’s usually not a good idea to wander the streets of some of these areas late at night. It’s understandable why Amazon doesn’t want to send a delivery person to Roxbury at 3 a.m. However, steering clear of these areas only adds to the stigma surrounding these neighborhoods: that they are dangerous places no one should venture out to.
These are traditionally lower-income neighborhoods, and it makes sense that people who live in them wouldn’t be able to afford Amazon Prime. But proximity to an Amazon warehouse isn’t a factor when every area surrounding Roxbury is conveniently eligible for same-day delivery. The people paying for Amazon Prime who live in these neighborhoods aren’t receiving the full benefits that their neighbors a few miles away are. If someone from Dorchester next door can have this service, so should Roxbury.
The No. 1 rule for a successful service-based company is to keep the consumer satisfied. And consumers in these areas are clearly not happy. You could cut a few losses for the good of consumers.
Of course, companies that sell expensive products aren’t shamed for making products too expensive. But Amazon is depriving a Boston neighborhood of immediate services that it otherwise wouldn’t have.
Yes, it’s unfair to hold a company accountable for being unfair to people who can’t afford its products, because that’s not the case for other companies. Nobody is going to get mad at Burberry for not having a store in a poorer area. But the problem is not with the product. It’s far from it. Amazon sells products to these people who may otherwise not be able to purchase them. Amazon is withholding immediacy.
Amazon should find a way to accommodate these people, because right now, it seems like the paying customers who live in these areas don’t matter.
The company obviously didn’t think Bloomberg would sic its investigative team on the company’s delivery practices. But Amazon should have known that its layout of same-day delivery service locations looked suspicious. No matter its reasons for excluding minority neighborhoods, Amazon needs to amend its policies.
Holy jesus the quality of the freep writing has gone down.
Oh please. Amazon uses two demographics: Prime membership percentages in a community, and proximity to their dustribution centers, inventory partners, and carriers. I live in a very affluent, predominantly white neighborhoid and didn’t have same-day Prime for quite some time after it began. Two mostly black neighborhoods less than 5 and 10 miles from me did. Amazon told me my town wasn’t on the radar yet due to Prime membership and warehouse location. Please stop with the “Oh poor me” analysis of everything. Not everything is about race.