Amazon's newest Prime perk is same-day delivery from stores such as GNC and PacSun, Hope writes.

Why it matters: The added service demonstrates how much its consumer retail business has helped to fuel its enterprise e-commerce.

Catch up quick: Amazon announced today that Prime members in more than 10 cities including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., can get items from Superdry, Diesel, and others delivered same-day for free.

• Important caveats: Qualifying purchases need to be $25 or more. And orders are placed through the Amazon app or on Amazon.com.

Context: Other retailers including Sephora and grocery chains have been using platforms such as Instacart or UberEats to get their goods to homes.

• Coresight Research CEO Deborah Weinswig tells Axios that one Amazon advantage is that it can deliver a variety of goods in one trip.

The big picture: Heavy investments that Amazon has made in its logistics are paying off at a larger scale.

• “It’s taking an existing same-day delivery infrastructure and expanding it to other retailers,” Forrester principal analyst Sucharita Kodali tells Axios. 

What to watch: The real appeal and benefits of same-day delivery to retailers and customers. 

• While there has been massive funding for speedy delivery startups, customer demand isn’t there yet, says Kodali.
• On the other hand, Weinswig sees same-day delivery as being able to help customers make more sustainable decisions — such as buying one gallon of milk when they need it, versus six gallons that could go to waste.

Please use the dishwasher — that's Procter & Gamble's plea, Nathan writes.

• The company is doubling down on a long-running campaign to increase usage of the appliance in hopes of boosting its 70-year-old Cascade dishwashing brand, Bloomberg reports.

State of play: About 4 in 10 households don't use a dishwasher in a given week, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

• About 27% don't have one, and another 14% don't use the one that's there.

The intrigue: At least some shirk the dishwasher in the belief they are saving water, a narrative P&G has long been seeking to dispel.

🚛 An April accident sparked concerns that an autonomous-trucking company may be sacrificing safety to rush technology to market. (WSJ)

▲ The SEC charged 11 people associated with Forsage in a crypto pyramid scheme. (Axios)

A federal trial that began today will determine whether Penguin Random House can acquire rival Simon & Schuster for $2.2 billion, marrying the first- and fourth-largest U.S. book publishers, Axios Pro's Kerry Flynn reports.

Why it matters: The outcome will set a precedent for mergers and acquisitions at large, as the Biden administration continues to challenge corporate consolidation.

What they're saying: The DOJ, which filed the lawsuit last November, argued Penguin Random House would gain "outsized influence" over which books are published in the U.S. and how much authors are paid.

• The other side: The company contends the government's argument amounts to "artificial concentration to create artificial harm," Deadline reported.

What's next: The trial is slated to run August 1-19, with a ruling expected in November, per Vanity Fair.

Nordstrom's customer service has been described as "legendary."

• And that famous story you may have heard about being able to return anything — even car tires? It's true, the company says.

Driving the news: The retailer tracked down the former employee responsible for the famed refund and featured him on today’s episode of the company’s podcast, The Nordy Pod, Hope writes.

• Craig Trounce worked at a Nordstrom store in Fairbanks, Alaska, more than 40 years ago.
• A customer rolled in a pair of used car tires and insisted he bought them in that building. Nordstrom never sold tires, but it did acquire three stores from a company that did.
• Instead of turning the customer away, Trounce called a tire company to get an idea of the price and made the exchange.

Trounce’s thought bubble: “My grandmother from Germany had a saying — how you holler in the woods is how it echoes back."

“There are real concerns that our productivity as a whole is not where it needs to be for the head count we have.”