After testing AmazonFresh for nearly five years in Seattle, the online retail giant is set to roll out a grocery delivery service to (at least some of) the rest of us, according to an article from Reuters.

The news agency reported Tuesday that Los Angeles would get AmazonFresh “as early as this week,” with the San Francisco Bay Area due to follow later this year.

Assuming that goes well, AmazonFresh is expected to launch in 2014 in “20 other urban areas” nationwide (and some overseas).

Last year, one industry analysis white paper (PDF) from the Hartman Group estimated that “US online sales of food and beverage products are expected to grow to $15.4 billion by 2013.”

Other recent analysis has speculated that Amazon’s goal isn’t necessarily to dominate the difficult grocery delivery market, but rather to develop the infrastructure necessary for same-day delivery of all of its products.

“Our interviews with AmazonFresh insiders suggest that Amazon’s internal target for expansion was break-even and that its motivation for investment is more strategic than profit driven,” wrote Logan Gallogly, a research analyst at RetailNetGroup, as quoted by Forbes last month.

One recent study even suggests that paying for groceries delivery is, in aggregate, more green than doing all that driving yourself. (Of course, I mostly bike to do my grocery shopping, but hey, not everyone has that luxury.)