NEW YORK – Bloomberg News reported last week that Amazon.com began offering one-hour delivery in Manhattan, an effort to “connect consumers with products they order online, as quickly as possible.”

The "Prime Now" mobile app, available to Amazon Prime members, covers shipments of tens of thousands of household goods such as shampoo, paper towels, toys and books, the company said in a statement. The service will expand to additional cities in 2015. Two-hour delivery is free, but customers can spend an extra $7.99 to have orders delivered in an hour.

Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles, told Bloomberg that the service could hurt convenience stores selling general merchandise items such as batteries and paper towels. "Their prices are so low on convenience items that it won't offset the incremental delivery cost," Pachter said.

"There are times when you can't make it to the store and other times when you simply don't want to go," Dave Clark, Amazon's senior vice president of worldwide operations, said in a statement. "There are so many reasons to skip the trip and now Prime members in Manhattan can get the items they need delivered in an hour or less."