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New Amazon Day shipping option lets you pick the day you get deliveries

The online retailer creates a program to offer more shipping choices and predictability.

Ben Fox Rubin Former senior reporter
Ben Fox Rubin was a senior reporter for CNET News in Manhattan, reporting on Amazon, e-commerce and mobile payments. He previously worked as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and got his start at newspapers in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Ben Fox Rubin
2 min read
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At an Amazon warehouse in New Jersey.

Ben Fox Rubin/CNET

First there was Prime Day. Now there's Amazon Day.

Amazon is slowly rolling out a new delivery option for its Prime members in the US, called Amazon Day, the company said Friday. The invite-only program lets members set a specific day of the week for their shipments to arrive.

For example, if you pick Thursday, all the stuff you bought during the week, and select at checkout to arrive on your "Amazon Day," will be waiting on your doorstep when Thursday comes around. That day will remain as your default for future weeks unless you change it at checkout.

Prime members who join the program will still be able to select their regular one-day, two-day and no-rush shipping options (if they're available) for every order. Most items that are available for two-day deliveries will get the new Amazon Day option.

"We're excited to be testing a new service aimed at making the delivery experience more convenient for customers,"  Amazon spokeswoman Kristen Kish said in a statement.

The program, which comes just ahead of the holiday shopping season, could offer some added benefits for Prime customers. Since the company says Amazon Day orders will arrive in as few boxes as possible, folks will be able to help the environment while cutting down on their mountains of shipping boxes. Plus, people looking to make their deliveries more predictable -- and avoid porch thefts in the process -- may migrate to the new program.

Watch this: How Amazon ships its biggest and bulkiest stuff

Though Amazon emphasized consumer choice and predictability when discussing Amazon Day, the program does also offer potential business benefits for the company. By cutting down on multiple deliveries, Amazon could save on shipping and packaging costs. In its latest quarter, Amazon's shipping costs rose 22 percent worldwide, to $6.6 billion.

Amazon Day is yet another concept the world's largest e-commerce company is offering to let its customers get deliveries and handle returns in all sorts of ways. For instance, Amazon introduced its Amazon Key in-home and in-car delivery programs, as well as returns at Kohl's department stores. Amazon is also offering deliveries via drones to a handful of its UK customers.

On Friday, Amazon is inviting a small group of customers to join the new program and plans to bring on more customers in the coming months. Amazon had already been testing the program with its employees over the past few months.

In most cases, customers can add to their Amazon Day orders up to two days before the day arrives. There's no discount, like Amazon's no-rush shipping offer, associated with using the program. Customers can set any day of the week for their Amazon Day delivery, including weekends -- so long as weekend deliveries are available in their area.

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