Amazon's next move could reshape how America shops — all over again

Meet San Francisco's 'permanent underclass' — and the ones who think they still have a shot

Oracle CFO says 'doing more with less' isn't the answer in all-hands after layoffs

Nvidia hollowed out Groq. Here's what happened to the company left behind.

Amazon is plotting an unprecedented expansion of its same-day delivery operation that could redraw the map of American retail and take on Walmart's biggest advantage in everyday shopping.

The initiative, codenamed Project Mercury, would expand Amazon's same-day fulfillment network to more than 1,000 locations by 2031, an increase of more than tenfold from the roughly 85 facilities the company operates today, according to internal planning documents reviewed by Business Insider.

The effort will cost billions of dollars and could reshape how Americans shop for everyday items such as fresh food, paper towels, and cough medicine.

Walmart, with thousands of huge stores close to most US consumers, has dominated this valuable, sticky market. Amazon is betting it can rewrite the rules of everyday retail by moving inventory dramatically closer to customers through hundreds of new Same Day Fulfillment Centers, or SSDs, which stock its 90,000 most popular products.

One document described Project Mercury as a "transformational initiative to reshape the Same-Day Delivery network."

The project fundamentally redesigns this network around shorter distances. Amazon currently puts these same-day facilities about a 90-minute drive from customers. Now, it aims to put SSDs within a 10-mile straight-line radius of 80% of Prime subscribers in the US by 2031, according to the documents.

An Amazon spokesperson told Business Insider that internal projections are "preliminary, subject to significant revision, and shouldn't be treated as finalized plans." Amazon's same-day network currently serves more than 10,000 cities and towns, including rural communities, the spokesperson added, though same-day orders aren't exclusively fulfilled through SSD facilities.

"That said, it's no secret that we're focused on delivering faster for customers and the expansion of our same-day delivery network is playing a big role in that," the spokesperson said. "We continue to invest in fast delivery speed and convenience alongside wide selection and everyday low prices."

The plan could help Amazon attack one of Walmart's biggest advantages in the fight over groceries and other everyday purchases: physical proximity to customers.