People think of Amazon as an e-commerce company but Amazon has quietly become a logistics company on an incredible scale. Hundreds of warehouses around the wor

People think of Amazon as an e-commerce company but Amazon has quietly become a logistics company on an incredible scale. Hundreds of warehouses around the world. Amazon Logistics handling a growing portion of their package deliveries, meaning hundreds of delivery stations. Amazon Flex (crowdsourced contractors) handling much of that delivery as well. Thousands of shipping containers/trailers, dozens of airplanes, apparently a boat or two to move stuff from China. In India, many small stores now have all the local packages delivered there, and the store owner handles last-mile delivery to customers. 25+% year over year growth means that they are at a scale where any savings is worth millions or billions. It also means that if they don't vertically integrate, they'll have to depend on other companies scaling at the same rate. (I spent 5 years writing software in their logistics division. Kind of miss it sometimes.)