As a 'Metropolitan Statistical Area' (city & suburbs as analyzed by US census), Phoenix is 12th, with about 4.5M residents:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_metropolitan_area#Metr...

The LA MSA is about 3x larger in population and packs them into 1/3rd the area – so way, way different in how attractive for rolling out a novel service. Population age and wealth probably also figure in.

The Sears & Roebuck catalog was sent to rural farmers who had limited access to durable goods. It does seem to me counterproductive that Amazon tested this in cities that already have easy access to grocery markets.

$299/yr is $5.75 per delivery if you order something every week. But $25 if you only buy once a month. For the service to be worthwhile they need to sell to areas that need better access to fresh foods. There's a name for that, food deserts. And Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York are not on that list. Maybe if they had tested in a place like Phoenix they would have seen much higher use and could justify a lower subscription rate with delivery charge.

http://apps.ams.usda.gov/fooddeserts/foodDeserts.aspx

I'm guessing places that are "food deserts" are generally not affluent enough to be the target market that will pay a delivery fee.

To be fair, Phoenix is also in the middle of nowhere. There's a decent sized city a few hours to the south, a big city a few hours to the west and a few hours to the east, and a somewhat decent sized city a few hours to the north but that's it. Mostly desert surrounds us. Our airport is among the busiest in the world. We have zero usable water access. I imagine getting stock into Phoenix is slightly more difficult than LA or Austin or Seattle or, well, anywhere.

Kroger, Walmart, and a number of others seem to manage supply lines to/from Phoenix just fine... there's also a major Amazon hub here in Phoenix.

There are several million people in the phoenix area, it's not like we don't have grocery stores, some better stocked with produce than others... not to mention some of the better stocked places tend to have a price premium, which would fit better with the Amazon model.

Ordering groceries isn't, for the most part, about lack of localized options, it's about convenience and time saving. In Tempe, I can order just about any kind of food nearly 24/7... That's prepared food.

I honestly feel that Uber will likely win this battle, as they'll probably source shopping and delivery tasks out of existing infrastructure. That can deliver a solution to more areas with less friction... and for that matter less competition and resistance as they do with ride sharing. I don't know why nobody has started an Uber for deliveries on a larger scale... there are lots of localized/shared delivery services out there, but nothing widespread or relatively universal.

Houstonian here: I feel your pain. Dallas and Austin often see new services tested and delivered there before we do. We're set to pass Chicago as city #3 by the next census but low population density really hurts us when it comes to bespoke delivery services. Amazon Now is here but fenced by zip code. I expect we'll catch up when commercial drones are allowed.

To top it off many of the Amazon warehouses serving LA are located in Phoenix! :)