Amazon poised to pass UPS, FedEx to become largest US delivery service

December 1, 2021 6:28 PM

Amazon has been steadily building up vast logistics and fulfillment operations since a 2013 holiday fiasco left its packages stranded in the hands of outside carriers. Bank of America analysts predicted Amazon delivered 58% of its own packages in 2019, making it the fourth-largest delivery service nationwide, according to Digital Commerce 360. By last August, Amazon was estimated to be delivering 66% of its own packages. Amazon’s in-house delivery operations have become a major advantage during this year’s holiday shopping season, which has been particularly challenging due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, a global supply chain crunch and labor shortages. Beyond leveraging its own trucks and planes, Clark said Amazon has been shipping goods to new ports to avoid blockages.
posted by folklore724 (28 comments total)

Here's another article about Amazon: Amazon acknowledges issue of drivers urinating in bottles in apology to congressman
posted by spork at 7:03 PM on December 1, 2021

I'm not surprised this is about to happen - they've been angling to be more of a logistics company rather than a retailer for years.
posted by rmd1023 at 7:04 PM on December 1, 2021 [3 favorites]

I'm not surprised this is about to happen - they've been angling to be more of a logistics company rather than a retailer for years.

McDonald's has long stopped being a hamburger company and is now just a real estate company with a hamburger franchise attached.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:10 PM on December 1, 2021 [7 favorites]

Funny to hear them congratulating themselves for something that would not could not happen if they hadn’t outsourced the all-important lastmile deliveries to 3rd parties whose employees they regularly force to abuse. But safely at arms length — fiscally, legally, and morally. If they’re so proud of our FedExing FedEx, why aren’t those delievery drivers Amazon employees? Trick question, we all know the answer: because then they’d have to be paid an amount that would cause shareholders to yell at Mr. Aren’t I Clever over there in the corner office.

Somehow I am more disappointed in CNBC for releasing this brainless puff piece than in the self-congratulatory CEO . I wonder which of them has never needed to pee in a bottle just to be able to make rent.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 8:23 PM on December 1, 2021 [22 favorites]

Now after seeing what else the author of that piece has written (or, tweeted) about AMZN, I am wondering if the whole thing was just taking the piss. Well done Ms. Palmer. Well. Done.

slowclap.wav
posted by armoir from antproof case at 8:38 PM on December 1, 2021 [1 favorite]

they've been angling to be more of a logistics company rather than a retailer for years.

Which is why from what I've heard the Teamsters are looking at a unionization movement directed toward the company.
posted by hippybear at 8:50 PM on December 1, 2021 [9 favorites]

“Amazon logistics” is an entirely unapologetic shitshow of double-sided exploitation of both its ‘contractors’ (in sensible if not legal actuality, employees) and consumers.

But hey Jeff is just a man with a van too, right? It’s just a space van (sans John Candy).
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:08 PM on December 1, 2021 [1 favorite]

Which is why from what I've heard the Teamsters are looking at a unionization movement directed toward the company.

Given their lack of success at FedEx, I wouldn't hold your breath.
posted by wierdo at 9:44 PM on December 1, 2021 [2 favorites]

UPS and FedEx are basically a global shipping cartel, at this point. Any competition would be welcome, even if it is Amazon.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:39 PM on December 1, 2021 [1 favorite]

UPS are unionized (Teamsters) but the union's not that effective because they have an agreement with the company to take cases to arbitration and the company picks the arbitrators. They lose 80% of the cases.
posted by subdee at 3:16 AM on December 2, 2021 [7 favorites]

But at least the base pay for drivers is quite high, even if UPS can pull shaningans with the cases to terminate people they don't like and avoid paying workers comp for injuries.
posted by subdee at 3:18 AM on December 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

UPS and FedEx are basically a global shipping cartel, at this point. Any competition would be welcome, even if it is Amazon.

The idea of UPS and FedEx realizing that, with their global shipping cartel, they too can open up their own online marketplaces and charge 15-30% of the package value instead of just weight and destination charges, while excluding anyone else not on the marketplace who simply wants to ship something ...

Well, it’s like one of those gangster films where the younger more brutal boss shows up and starts taking over territory from the oldsters. When it comes to cartel capitalism: more is not better.
posted by romanb at 3:54 AM on December 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

The flip side of the coin is: Amazon and UPS aren’t directly competing, so it won’t change much for the positive nor negative. Amazon isn’t a delivery service in the way that UPS/DHL/FedEx are. Is there a reason why it would want to open up to non-integrated customers and businesses? That would be like Apple selling its OS without the hardware or vice-versa.
posted by romanb at 4:06 AM on December 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

McDonald's has long stopped being a hamburger company and is now just a real estate company with a hamburger franchise attached.

This happens a lot. Many universities are now approaching the point where they're accommodation providers that also put on a few classes. Supermarkets went that way a while ago.

Perhaps under a late capitalist system where real estate is one of the most profitable investments, it's inevitable that all large organisations eventually expand to the point where they're real estate companies.
posted by indemandgirl at 5:56 AM on December 2, 2021 [6 favorites]

true dystopia is when a philip k dick b plot like this becomes reality, but i still cant buy amphetamines from a vending machine
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 6:24 AM on December 2, 2021 [17 favorites]

This happens a lot. Many universities are now approaching the point where they're accommodation providers that also put on a few classes.

Most private universities are endowment fund management firms with some side hustles. Car manufactures have primarily become lenders that throw in a trinket SUV with your loan. Like the inevitability of carcination (where everything evolves to be crab form) all successful businesses eventually become finance firms.
posted by srboisvert at 6:54 AM on December 2, 2021 [18 favorites]

there are now many Amazon delivery robots in the area near me. I saw them being dropped off from a van yesterday.

Not sure I like this. They do resemble the little droids that scurried around the Death Star, and that's fine, but there were like five of them going up the sidewalk, which is, you know, for regular walking.
posted by thelonius at 7:01 AM on December 2, 2021 [3 favorites]

romanb: Amazon isn’t a delivery service in the way that UPS/DHL/FedEx are. Is there a reason why it would want to open up to non-integrated customers and businesses? That would be like Apple selling its OS without the hardware or vice-versa.

That's effectively what AWS is though. Amazon built a bunch of computing infrastructure to run their online store, and then opened it up to anyone who wanted to use it (including to run their own online stores). I'd be very surprised if they didn't see delivery infrastructure in the same way.

People are always going to buy things online that don't come from Amazon. So if Amazon can get a cut of that somehow, even on the delivery side, why wouldn't they? They'll charge more to external organizations than they charge themselves, so they're not undermining their own "free" delivery selling point. I can't see it as anything other than a win from their perspective.
posted by fader at 7:15 AM on December 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

In the UK at least Amazon's delivery network is already open to non-Amazon parcels.

I don't know about other places.
posted by grahamparks at 7:33 AM on December 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

The damn guy driving the Amazon Sprinter van leaves his side door open while he drives around my neighborhood.

He's belted in so I don't worry abut an injury, but I don't want my stuff falling out or getting rained on, just to save him three seconds per delivery!
posted by wenestvedt at 7:53 AM on December 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

fader: Amazon built a bunch of computing infrastructure to run their online store, and then opened it up to anyone who wanted to use it (including to run their own online stores). I'd be very surprised if they didn't see delivery infrastructure in the same way.

This week AWS announced that they'll sell turnkey systems for private 5G networks. Contrary to the "build it for yourself and then resell it," I read on Twitter that it's another company's product that Amazon is just re-badging.

(5G only has a 300m/1000-foot reach, so this is ideal for well-defined operations where they want to have a simple, robust network. Get pre-configured SIM cards, throw them into all the handhelds and equipment and monitors and other gear on your job site, and it all works without traversing the public networks -- for which you would otherwise pay. Logically, this could have grown out of Amazon's own warehouse operations but...evidently not?)
posted by wenestvedt at 7:58 AM on December 2, 2021

there are now many Amazon delivery robots in the area near me. I saw them being dropped off from a van yesterday [...] there were like five of them going up the sidewalk, which is, you know, for regular walking.

Many states have classified these robots as pedestrians, for all intents and purposes, and allowed them truly insane latitude for operation -- Pennsylvania, for example, allows them to move at 12mph on sidewalks while carrying 550lbs!

What legal protections do these robots have? More importantly, what standard of liability?

Like, Stop and Shop could ban me from their stores for intentionally ramming Marty with my cart (although they haven't yet, thankfully), and if it runs over my foot in their store, they'd certainly be liable for that. But what happens when I tip over one of Amazon's delivery drones on a public sidewalk? When it crushes a child or blocks a curb cut and traps a wheelchair user in the street?
posted by uncleozzy at 8:08 AM on December 2, 2021 [4 favorites]

But what happens when I tip over one of Amazon's delivery drones on a public sidewalk? When it crushes a child or blocks a curb cut and traps a wheelchair user in the street?

You get one month of Amazon Prime for free for new or existing customers.

(Just kidding. They cancelled that years ago once they realized they were too big to regulate and had bought every elected official in the country by putting a warehouse in their district.)
posted by srboisvert at 8:46 AM on December 2, 2021

I saw an article a few years back about how UPS trucks are wired up with loads of sensors that allows for detailed surveillance of the drivers and their activities. Sounds like something Amazon would want to get into too since they’re already doing this in people’s homes.
posted by njohnson23 at 8:59 AM on December 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

I saw an article a few years back about how UPS trucks are wired up with loads of sensors that allows for detailed surveillance of the drivers and their activities. Sounds like something Amazon would want to get into too since they’re already doing this in people’s homes.

They are already doing that
posted by Dr. Twist at 9:24 AM on December 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

I know this is the future, but the Amazon delivery men and women are markedly worse than USPS, FedEx or UPS. It's actually made me go local for everything as I don't want to deal with it.

I really wish there was a way to just tell them ship everything USPS, I'll pay extra. It's so much less hassle dealing with them than Amazon directly.
posted by jmauro at 12:01 PM on December 2, 2021 [5 favorites]

Amazon are currently trying to get permission to build a warehouse in my district. Their delivery has never been amazing around here, but ever since they started lobbying for this new warehouse, it's declined markedly - there's very little next-day Prime, for instance, and deliveries often don't arrive until just before the 10pm cut off. The latest wheeze is that they only seem to deliver to the area on Wednesdays and Fridays now.

I don't think it's a wider issue - people I know in other areas are still able to get a reasonable service from them. How plausible is it that they've deliberately degraded their service locally in order to get people to go "please, build a warehouse in town so we can get better Amazon service!"?
posted by indemandgirl at 1:46 AM on December 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

Here's another article about Amazon: Amazon acknowledges issue of drivers urinating in bottles in apology to congressman

Isn't this an industry-wide problem?
posted by Selena777 at 7:26 AM on December 3, 2021