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Amazon expanding, creating their own delivery service


VAVending

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Saw this interesting piece of news:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/smallbusiness/amazon-says-this-business-opportunity-could-make-you-up-to-dollar300k-a-year-—-heres-how-to-apply/ar-BBMXH07?ocid=ientp

(The term “biz op” in the title of the article made me laugh.)

Looks interesting and makes sense from Amazon’s perspective. Drones only go so far and it’s been inevitable that they move away from FedUsUps. I’d always figured they’d create their own shipping branch, but contracting it out makes so much more sense.

Now I wonder if they’d let me run an Amazon route half the week and a snack route in the other half... as if I’m not busy enough. 😑

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22 hours ago, orsd said:

Hahahahah...f dat.

"up to" = not gonna happen.

*cough* healthy vending *cough*

Though those are definitely the upper limits, don’t knock the transportation industry. My father has had a fleet with FedEx Custom Critical for years; those numbers aren’t impossible for him. He does specialized and refrigerated shipments, so I imagine the numbers on a local delivery route would be much less, but still.

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42 minutes ago, VAVending said:

Though those are definitely the upper limits, don’t knock the transportation industry. My father has had a fleet with FedEx Custom Critical for years; those numbers aren’t impossible for him. He does specialized and refrigerated shipments, so I imagine the numbers on a local delivery route would be much less, but still.

FedEx custom critical is a very profitable niche for the best of the best.

It's like how some independent vendors become very very big.

My comments were not directed to the transportation industry in general, just towards Amazon, who are well known for screwing over the owner ops they contract to haul their truckload freight. I'm also knocking Amazon's use of marketing phrases that are reminiscent of what the healthy vending biz ops used.

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2 hours ago, orsd said:

FedEx custom critical is a very profitable niche for the best of the best.

It's like how some independent vendors become very very big.

My comments were not directed to the transportation industry in general, just towards Amazon, who are well known for screwing over the owner ops they contract to haul their truckload freight. I'm also knocking Amazon's use of marketing phrases that are reminiscent of what the healthy vending biz ops used.

Thanks for the clarification, I’m afraid I’m quite ignorant of Amazon’s practices up to this point.

The wording caught my funny bone as well; when I first read the link and knew nothing about it, I just saw “this business opportunity could make you...” and couldn’t believe that the person sending the link was buying into anything with that in the title.

I know local weekly routes for FedEx and UPS have acted as a good source of income for a few friends, but if Amazon treats it poorly then I’d as soon pass it by without a thought.

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They have over 3000 applicants to be subcontractors and have ordered the sprinter vans to be delivered over the next year... all on lease to the subs, not to be owned by Amazon.  They are already doing an Uber-style delivery service in larger cities, and the drivers are complaining it's not as lucrative as advertised....

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Of course, amazon's goal is to drive down shipping costs (and ultimately the price WE pay for goods to be shipped).  The amazing part of this deal (for them) is that it not only should cut down significantly on the shipping costs, but it will cause some serious competition from UPS/FedEx (and maybe USPS) to make the deal even better for them.  I'm sure that amazon is going to end up being the real winner in this one.  Not really the consumer and likely not the contractors.

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On 9/17/2018 at 1:05 AM, AngryChris said:

Of course, amazon's goal is to drive down shipping costs (and ultimately the price WE pay for goods to be shipped).  The amazing part of this deal (for them) is that it not only should cut down significantly on the shipping costs, but it will cause some serious competition from UPS/FedEx (and maybe USPS) to make the deal even better for them.  I'm sure that amazon is going to end up being the real winner in this one.  Not really the consumer and likely not the contractors.

Generally what’s good in business is when the seller and consumer/contractor all walk away happy. It’s when either party decides to tip the scales in their favor that the other gets POed. Sadly, even POed customers don’t have too much of an effect on the bottom line for businesses like this; see Google or Apple for examples.

Hoping this does drive shipping into a more reasonable range.  It’ll be interesting to see how it all pans out.

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