5 ms·

I'm interested to see if Amazon will go into the carrier business, and force the others like UPS, DHL, etc to up their game and provide a good service i.e. pack

I'm interested to see if Amazon will go into the carrier business, and force the others like UPS, DHL, etc to up their game and provide a good service i.e. packages delivered looking like they haven't been kicked about like a football. However as far as I'm aware, this business is also very low margin, so a lot of room for them to lose money here too.

bsharitt 11y ago
I don't think Amazon will get into the carrier business to do anymore ship what they sell.
SixSigma 11y ago
This is for bottleneck reduction and benchmarking.
_dominic 11y ago
As SixSigma said, it makes more sense to use it as a benchmarking tool than trying to compete in a low margin market.
Spooky23 11y ago
Amazon has crazy volumes that give them options to innovate beyond what UPS/FedEx sorting centers can do. They can skip the whole hub step and do what Southwest did for passenger travel. Because they don't need to build a nationwide network, they can cherry pick the markets that make sense to them. It's great for Amazon, but awful for everyone else. FedEx will lose, and UPS will take a body blow, but have more clout and market power.
- bpicolo 11y ago
  How do you figure e.g. UPS doesn't have crazy volumes? They're delivering everything Amazon would already
  - Spooky23 11y ago
    They do, but UPS still has to sort it, right? Amazon can sort at the origin -- make products roll out of the distribution centers in whatever order needed to fill the plane, skipping the time & cost.
    - ketralnis 11y ago
      Couldn't they do this today? Require that Amazon get it to them in pallets labelled by zip code
      - Spooky23 11y ago
        Zip code stuff has been around for years... I'm talking about optimizing the packing to ensure that the trucks are packed optimally. I've seen some references in articles that either said or implied that the level of optimization available is linked to how much data UPS is willing to share with Amazon about it's operations. Given that Amazon uses pretty brutal public critique of UPS as a contract negotiation / customer sat tactic, and is obviously working on ways around them, I think the UPS/Amazon relationship has leaned more towards "frenemy" (vs trusted partner) for a few years now.

bsharitt 11y ago

I don't think Amazon will get into the carrier business to do anymore ship what they sell.

SixSigma 11y ago

This is for bottleneck reduction and benchmarking.

_dominic 11y ago

As SixSigma said, it makes more sense to use it as a benchmarking tool than trying to compete in a low margin market.

Spooky23 11y ago

Amazon has crazy volumes that give them options to innovate beyond what UPS/FedEx sorting centers can do. They can skip the whole hub step and do what Southwest did for passenger travel. Because they don't need to build a nationwide network, they can cherry pick the markets that make sense to them. It's great for Amazon, but awful for everyone else. FedEx will lose, and UPS will take a body blow, but have more clout and market power.

bpicolo 11y ago
How do you figure e.g. UPS doesn't have crazy volumes? They're delivering everything Amazon would already
- Spooky23 11y ago
  They do, but UPS still has to sort it, right? Amazon can sort at the origin -- make products roll out of the distribution centers in whatever order needed to fill the plane, skipping the time & cost.
  - ketralnis 11y ago
    Couldn't they do this today? Require that Amazon get it to them in pallets labelled by zip code
    - Spooky23 11y ago
      Zip code stuff has been around for years... I'm talking about optimizing the packing to ensure that the trucks are packed optimally. I've seen some references in articles that either said or implied that the level of optimization available is linked to how much data UPS is willing to share with Amazon about it's operations. Given that Amazon uses pretty brutal public critique of UPS as a contract negotiation / customer sat tactic, and is obviously working on ways around them, I think the UPS/Amazon relationship has leaned more towards "frenemy" (vs trusted partner) for a few years now.