Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Is Testing Its Own Delivery Service To Rival FedEx, UPS (bloomberg.com)
Longtime package delivery companies UPS and FedEx may have some new competition from Amazon. The company is experimenting with a new delivery service of its own intended to make more products available for free two-day delivery and relieve overcrowding in its warehouses. Bloomberg reports: The service began two years ago in India, and Amazon has been slowly marketing it to U.S. merchants in preparation for a national expansion, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the U.S. pilot project is confidential. Amazon is calling the project Seller Flex, one person said. The service began on a trial basis this year in West Coast states with a broader rollout planned in 2018, the people said. Amazon will oversee pickup of packages from warehouses of third-party merchants selling goods on Amazon.com and their delivery to customers' homes, the people said -- work that is now often handled by UPS and FedEx. Amazon could still use these couriers for delivery, but the company will decide how a package is sent instead of leaving it up to the seller. Handling more deliveries itself would give Amazon greater flexibility and control over the last mile to shoppers' doorsteps, let it save money through volume discounts, and help avoid congestion in its own warehouses by keeping merchandise in the outside sellers' own facilities.
Amazon is doing some of their own deliveries in Snohomish, WA now.
One massive company that does everything and sells everything anyone needs. Nobody else able to compete because of volume. It just wasn't able to happen up until this point, until the internet made it possible.
is to treat the packages they transport with a bit more respect than UPS or FedEX does.
Many times I get a package delivered and it looks like they routed it through a war zone somewhere.
All they need to do is get it to me intact and damage free and I'll happily use them instead.
Exactly how much of the world is amazon going to justify taking over just because their ever-expanding infrastructure is running up against real-world limitations?
Amazon.gov?
amazon seems bent on inviting anti trust scrutiny.
however, even without government intervention, amazon, like previous conglomerate histories demonstrate, will eventually get in to businesses it will not be able to manage efficiently as others that specialize in that business. its core competency will be made to subsidize its failures or also-rans in other areas.
sit back and enjoy.
We've had it here for a while. My apartment complex has notified us twice that they Amazon service not only refuses to deliver to the door like FedEx and UPS but the delivery person just dumps packages in the office without notifying anyone or getting a signature. When I first saw the white vans with the Amazon logo I couldn't help but noticed the "Enterprise" sticker on the back. I guess they rent locally instead of owning a fleet? Maybe that was just a trial. Absolutely crazy logistics.
N=1: I order a lot from Amazon Prime. About a year ago Amazon switched to Amazon Logistics, and since then a lot of the time things that were supposed to arrive in two days arrive whenever, maybe 4 days. There is no useful tracking number like FedEx or UPS, sometimes things are listed as "delivered" in my Amazon account when they are actually "out for delivery". On one occasion something was never delivered, got refunded, re-ordered, never delivered again; finally on the third go-round it was ordered and actually delivered. Amazon has got quite way to go before it catches up with UPS or FedEx.
Amazon could buy the USPS out of petty cash - and make it the most efficient delivery system on the planet.
OK - now tell me why Amazon shouldn't.
Here in the Puget Sound area, this Amazon Delivery Service has been a thing for at least a year or two.
Also, I am pretty sure I've seen this same story here on Slashdot at least two previous times over that same period. And, with each story, I've felt compelled to share my experience regarding the suckitude of said service.
#DeleteChrome
According to USPS employees, USPS won the contract to deliver Amazon packages - 7 days a week in the USA.
Because there's so many complaints on Amazons forum about packages being lost, stolen, miss-delivered, and same day or next day delivery taking a week... that Amazon is shutting down the forum.
Flex is Uber for deliveries. Gig economy work for individuals with their own vehicles (usually cars) hired in blocks of time (currently 4 hours) using an app. In fact many of the drivers are Uber drivers diversifying their income. They drive Uber most of the time, but do a block of Amazon Flex deliveries when they can get a block.
They're not trying to take on FedEx/DHL/USPS in the general market, they're going for vertical integration.
Were that I say, pancakes?
Some people have jobs, you know.
They are using subcontractors who are working out of their own vehicles or other class C vehicles rather than full on delivery trucks like in the past.
The bigger concern brought up for neighborhoods is that you now can't tell if someone is suspicious or is a delivery driver, because the people delivering packages are now in unmarked non-commercial vehicles, and being able to tell if they are leaving off a package, or stealing one/casing the place is becoming difficult without always on surveillance.
Perhaps that is part of the plan.
Get it as good as the US Post Office and they'll be doing OK.
Sent a camera for repair a couple weeks ago. Used USPS 2nd Day air, $89.40 and it got there in 2 days.
Ready for return the following Friday, the place only used FedEx. They say, "Ground $70." I say "2nd Day Air." They say "2nd Day Air $151 and it'll arrive following Wednesday (5th day after Friday.) I say "Ground" Arrived today, 6 days later, for the $70.
Clearly that serviced did not favorable compete with the US Post Office.
So if Amazon wants to be really good, all they have to do is compete with the Post Office. Amazon is sending a lot of my stuff by USPS anyway.
Basically. Amazon still need FedEx, UPS, and USPS, but combined they are still not enough, so Amazon built their own shipping service to help out. Amazon sells at too much stuff to only use their own delivery service. This is the result of outscaling all major shipping services combined.
That's what Amazon Pickup Locations are for.
The business schools have been teaching generation of managers that externalization is the key to success and that corporation should only focus on their core business while relying on sub contractor for everything else. Now it turns out that one of the most successful company is having success precisely because they are doing exactly the opposite of that.
Do you think that MBA teachers will change their recommendations or just go business as usual and continue milking gullible pupils to teach them how to sink a corporation?
I don't about FedEx and DHL... But it would NOT take much to take on UPS... That has to be the worst delivery company I have EVER had the misfortune of using... I have had several very bad experiences from a customer standpoint...
Opposite for me. FedEx always delivers to the wrong house while UPS has been almost perfect.
The last three Amazon purchases I've had scheduled for delivery to a home in the Sarasota FL area were sent via "AMZL_US". NONE of them were delivered on time. The tracking information was, compared to what I've come to expect from FedEx and UPS, vague and useless. For the last of the three packages I paid extra for expedited delivery, which didn't seem to matter as it didn't come when promised. I cancelled my order and did the unthinkable -- I drove two miles to Home Deport and bought it there! I am generally a total Amazonaholic for shopping but if they remain unreliable I'll have to find alternatives, and I will. That's how markets work, right?
Imagine when retail dies. Who is going to be in a position to buy it all? Amazon.. They just bought Whole Foods.
Good-bye
lol, jeff will own fedex & ups. these are 3 stocks you gotta own. fed & ups will be good tax deductions to help pay for amazon at this financial level.
to lose my business...
Amazon delivery folks literally throw my packages at the front door, they have been willing to tromp through 12-24 inches of snow to get to my front door instead of going up the plowed driveway and leaving packages at the back door like UPS, Fedex, DHL, and even USPS...
None of the other carriers have mis-delivered a package to the wrong house for me in years, yet amazon manages to give me some one else's stuff weekly and give them my stuff at a similar rate...
I'm at a point where I seriously consider canceling any order that is listed as being shipped with amazon, because I know I won't get my package when they said I will, I prefer USPS (where the tracking information is only updated about a 1/3rd of the time) to amazon, because at least they get the package to my house.
In suburban Boston area they are using a contractor in white vans to deliver package 7 days a week. I don't think it's the same as this program but they quality of delivery is terrible. They have driven over my lawn, performed drive by deliveries (thrown packages on the lawn) and delivered stuff but then reported it lost? I did get a refund the "lost" package and kept the merch ... *snort*
Amazon.ca is now shipping using Intelcom express. My delivery was fine and on time, but lots of people have reported bad experiences with them.
Their shipment tracking page just looks like an email feedback form. I don't think they have an publicly accessible tracking system yet.
They are failing!
I have packages delivered to my office and Amazon has yet to get there before the building is locked down at 7pm.
Iâ(TM)m waiting on a package that was âoeattemptedâ yesterday at 7:30 pm.
Fedex and UPS bother deliver by 3pm every day.
"one person said".... Amazon customers have all received diaper rash regardless of what order was placed....one person said.
In my upper-middle class 95% WASP neighborhood, Amazon delivery service consists of an ethnically diverse obese mother in a beat-up vehicle idling down the street at 2mph while her malnourished-looking 10 year old son runs back and forth from the car to doorsteps carrying Amazon packages in the twilight of the evenings. It breaks my heart and is a reminder about the inequality within our great society's race to the bottom.
I hope this doesn't mean they'll stop using the US Postal Service. I'm rarely home during delivery hours, and I strongly prefer shipping via USPS because they'll put the packages in the streetside lockbox rather than leaving them on my doorstep.
I don't think you have any investment in Amazon.
This expansion strategy is a logical conclusion of the of their trajectory, to date.
That would have been your motivation to dive in then, and it would motivate you to be celebrating now.
Rolling stock is one of the missing pieces to a total monopoly for Amazon.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Screw pickup locations. One of the great things about ordering online is that the stuff gets delivered to you.
Not much use if you work. Unless you can get stuff delivered to work.
For most things I've seen on Amazon, they can ship via USPS. Where I live, the mailboxes are on the street and have lockboxes to hold packages, so if it's shipped via USPS then they put it in the lockbox, and it's waiting for me when I get home from work. It's secure, and I don't have to go to some pick up center.
This is one of the reasons I strongly prefer USPS to FedEx or UPS, who just leave the packages on my door or (worse) leave a note telling me to pick the packages up from their distribution center.