San Antonio and Austin are two of the 37 cities where Amazon will begin offering package deliveries to your car for Prime members, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Amazon has been fighting 'porch thieves' who have been busy snatching packages off the front porches of the homes of people who are away at work. This way, you can tell Amazon to deliver your package to your car while it is parked at work, just as long as the cat is in an 'area accessible to the public,' and not behind locked gates or in a private parking garage.
Delivery through the program, called 'key-in-car,' is available with same day and second day Amazon Prime deliveries.
Right now the service is available only to people with 'On Star' enabled General Motors vehicles, Chevy, Buick, GMC or Cadillac, and 'connected' Volvo cars, but Amazon says it hopes to expand the program soon to other vehicle tech.
Amazon says the in-car delivery is an expansion on its program to leave packages inside the homes of customers with certain types of front door locks.
To get started, customers download the Amazon Key App and then link their Amazon account with their connected car service account.
Once setup is complete and the delivery location has been registered, customers can shop on Amazon.com and select the “In-Car” delivery option at checkout.
On delivery day, the Amazon Key App lets customers check if they’ve parked within range of the delivery location, and provides notifications with the expected 4-hour delivery time window. The delivery person will unlock the car by swiping a code which is printed on the delivery sticker, and will then use the same technology to relock the car before driving away.
Amazon uses multiple layers of verification to ensure the security of in-car deliveries. Each time a delivery driver requests access to a customer’s vehicle, Amazon verifies that an authorized driver is at the right location with the right package, through an encrypted authentication process. Once this process is successfully completed, the car is then unlocked. Customers receive a notification via the Amazon Key App after the delivery is completed and the vehicle is relocked. No special codes or keys are ever provided to delivery drivers.
Amazon says the service is also good for people who want to have gifts for their spouse or kids delivered so the recipient won't find them, as well as to separate business related packages with personal packages.