Could amazon dominate the grocery business, too?

Amazon has already killed or crippled a number of big-name businesses: Brick-and-mortar booksellers like Barnes & Noble and Borders; electronics megastores like Circuit City, with Best

Buy not too far behind. And now, the Seattle-based monolith could be aiming its cross-hairs at a new target: Your local grocery store. _Reuters_ reports that AmazonFresh, which has been

running in Seattle for five years, could expand into new markets in the coming months, beginning with San Francisco and then Los Angeles. If these test markets go well, "the company may

launch AmazonFresh in 20 other urban areas in 2014, including some outside the United States," according to two anonymous sources. AmazonFresh has pretty much anything you can get at

your local grocery store, and delivers the goods to your doorstep the day after you order. Users simply pick what they want online or through an app on their Windows Phone. In Seattle,

AmazonFresh users can even order local and organic goods from specialty retailers, like Pike Place Fish Market or Blue Streak Chocolate. SUBSCRIBE TO THE WEEK Escape your echo chamber. Get

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inbox. The service isn't unlike FreshDirect in New York, or Instacart in the Bay Area. "Both firms have been working single markets, breaking ground and demonstrating a fact,"

says Alex Wilhelm at _The Next Web_: "Grocery shopping simply isn't a popular activity." But food delivery is a low-margin business that grapples with a unique set of

logistical challenges. If Amazon is indeed looking to expand its grocery-delivery service into new markets, perhaps its best move would be to acquire a would-be competitor like FreshDirect.

Because expansion isn't easy, says Larry Dignan at _ZDNet_: Such a move, argues Dignan, would be akin to Amazon's purchase of Zappos: "Amazon would get distribution,

brainpower, and leave the brand largely alone." Amazon doesn't typically play the short game, and has shown that it's willing to take big risks for long-term growth. Despite

the challenges an AmazonFresh expansion presents, could a home delivery service actually succeed nationwide? If it does, you can see the upside for Amazon. A free daily email with the

biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com "Grocery is a frequency business," Manfred Bluemel, former head of market research at Amazon in 2010, tells

_Reuters_. "If Amazon can deliver to consumers' homes two or three times a week, they can up-sell other items."