Should there be delays at the dock or traffic or poor weather, the cost of disrupting Amazon’s existing freight flows could be more costly than the incremental revenue opportunity. The “cost of disruption,” as Andrew Lockwood, senior manager of solutions design at Suddath Global Logistics, put it, must be carefully calculated when selling excess capacity. Leveraging this capacity is by far the least complex for Amazon, given it could be injected into the system and handled with only a truck. Amazon knows exactly where its backhaul capacity is, and on regularly trafficked lanes, I suspect the capacity is already being sold to other shippers. When Amazon trucks complete a move from inbound center to another node in the network, it often returns empty. Through independent contractors, Amazon operated more than 40,000 trucks primarily in a one-way traffic network. The most glaring inefficiency in Amazon’s transportation network is its backhaul capacity. Where does it make sense to inject external freight into Amazon’s logistics network? In this scenario, all of a brand’s inventory is stored in and fulfilled by Amazon warehouses but sold via multiple channels including various marketplaces, the brand’s own website, social media and all the other places consumers shop these days. And we know that Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) services orders not made on - that’s why some orders from eBay, Etsy and even arrive at your doorstep from an Amazon-branded truck, often in Amazon packaging. We know Amazon offers LTL space at discounted rates via Amazon Freight. The details, as they often are with Amazon, are sparse. This week, CNBC reported that Amazon is now moving cargo for outside customers in the U.S.
According to an investigation by The Information, Amazon has been quietly transporting cargo on its planes for the Postal Service since at least 2019. in the next 18 months, while Morgan Stanley predicted it could happen this year. In the U.K., Amazon has a logistics-as-a-service program - a business model that researchers from DePaul University predict Amazon will launch in the U.S. In a limited capacity, Amazon already offers a variety of shipping options for outside merchants. For years, the logistics industry has watched with shock and awe as Amazon plows tens of billions each year into its logistics infrastructure just waiting for the day it dusts off the AWS playbook for AMZL. population lives within an hour of an Amazon warehouse, up from just 51% in 2018, according to UBS.īy now everyone knows the Amazon Web Services (AWS) story: Amazon outgrows its providers, builds a best-in-class solution for itself and begins selling excess capacity as a service to others. Similar growth has occurred with its warehouse fleet, which has added more than 100 million square feet of space in less than three years. According to SJ Consulting Group, Amazon is now shipping 72% of its own packages, up from 46.6% in 2019. One of its biggest infrastructure outlays, the $1.5 billion Amazon Air hub in northern Kentucky, became fully operational in August.
ESTIMATE FREIGHT CLASS AMAZON FBA DRIVERS
In the seven years since, Amazon Logistics (AMZL) has delivered more than 10 billion packages and has grown to over 400,000 drivers worldwide, 40,000 tractors, 70,000 trailers, 30,000 delivery vans and a fleet of more than 70 planes. The following year, Amazon began building its own global transportation network from the ground up. But its transportation providers at the time, namely UPS, FedEx and the Postal Service, were unable to handle Amazon’s peak volume surge.
The company had built a foolproof e-commerce platform where you could buy pretty much anything, and it had a warehouse network to fulfill millions of daily orders. This is an excerpt from Thursday’s (9/9) Point of Sale retail supply chain newsletter sponsored by ArcBest.ĭuring peak holiday season 2013, Amazon ran into major roadblocks.