• The Wall Street Journal, Friday, August 3, 2007 11:15 AM

Amazon.com has invited a small group of its customers in Mercer Island, Wash., to participate in a pilot program that allows them to go online to order perishable groceries, such as fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and milk to be delivered the following day. Dubbed Amazon Fresh, the company will store the groceries at a local refrigerated warehouse and deliver them in "temperature-controlled totes" using its own trucks.

Amazon plans to offer the service in other Seattle neighborhoods and could expand beyond that "when we're ready," says spokesman Craig Berman. Amazon also has been offering a gourmet-food-delivery service since 2003 and began delivering nonperishable groceries, such as health and personal-care items, last year.

In the late 1990s, a handful of online grocery-delivery companies, such as Webvan Group and Homegrocer.com, launched with fanfare but failed spectacularly when their sales didn't keep pace with the massive investment required.

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