Amazon’s Treasure Truck is rolling out nationwide

Even in the age of one-hour delivery, some deals are worth getting off the couch for — or at least that’s the idea behind Amazon.com Inc.’s Treasure Truck. The Seattle-based deals-on-wheels concept is rolling out to a number of yet-to-be-disclosed U.S. cities.

Amazon customers can receive a text message highlighting the deal of the day when the circus-themed Treasure Truck is nearby. Offerings appear to be a hodgepodge of products, including must-have electronics, meal kits and pool floats. People who opt to buy the day’s featured item from their smartphones can then pick it up at the truck, so the vehicle is kind of like a mobile pop-up shop.

Before the expansion was announced Wednesday, Treasure Truck deals were offered only in Seattle.

Amazon is staying mum on when and where its trucks will appear, but it did indicate that once Treasure Truck expands to a new city, a truck will be stationed in that city permanently. Those who are interested can text “truck” to 24193 to receive alerts when the company’s Treasure Truck is in their area.

Amazon’s objective is to capture even more data on how people buy online and pick up in store, said Yoram Wurmser, retail analyst at EMarketer. The company already operates lockers from which customers can pick up orders, is testing grocery pickup in Seattle and probably will use its deal to buy Whole Foods Market Inc. to push its e-commerce engine further into the physical world.

The Treasure Truck endeavor looks like a new way to test a different angle of online-to-offline commerce, Wurmser said.

“It’s not a program intended to make money,” he added. “The goal seems to be to get as broad a spectrum of people as possible to interact with it.”

jennifer.vangrove@sduniontribune.com