Amazon, the online retailer, has begun selling Kellogg's Corn Flakes and Campbell's cream of mushroom soup, as it continues its push to establish itself as the dominant online one-stop shopping destination.
The retailer's US customers can now buy almost 2,000 basic packaged foods online, including 12-packs of Campbell's soup for $12.99 (€10.60), and multi-packs of 70 individual servings of Kellogg's Corn Flakes for $28.
The retailer will also pay for the delivery of most grocery orders of more than $25 - underlining the degree to which it is absorbing costs as it expands its online presence into everything from sex toys to loose diamonds.
Amazon said it had gradually expanded the "food and snacks" segment of its online "health and personal care" store in recentmonths. "We look on this as a drug store, and you are going to find food items in a drug store," said an Amazon spokeswoman.
By focusing on bulk purchases of non-perishable items, Amazon's grocery sales contrast with the limited number of online grocers in the US.
Amazon's food selection is also dominated by more upscale, higher-margin brands in line with the demographics of its typical users, with organic products from Wild Oats, the second-largest US organic and natural grocery chain, and from Paul Newman's Natural Organics.
