This is an opportunity for Amazon to thrive into. It already has a lot of experience in a related industry, combining that with logistics is only logical.
> It [Amazon] already has a lot of experience in a related industry, combining that with logistics is only logical.
Amazon is a logistics company, first and foremost. From order entry to delivery, they use their logistics systems to deliver whatever it is that you want to buy, from physical goods to movies to third parties' products.
I once read a foreign policy expert talking about drug cartels and why they all seemed to do human trafficking too, and why a terrorist organization tried to use them. The author said that the cartels started with drugs, but they have evolved into logistics organizations which specialize in illegal goods and bypassing customs. They have the means to ship things confidentially and without customs, and they'll put whatever you want to ship into their system. The author's point of view was that Wal-mart and Amazon are the same, but with legal goods and lawful business practices.
Amazon will for sure go after this industry. There's no doubt about that. But it's hard to tell how fast or aggressive are they going to pursue this opportunity.
The problem is that they will never be able to reach the potential in the market. Many shippers would refuse to do business with a competitor, and hiring random kids in moms minivan to schlep boxes won’t retain B2B.
Seems strange for Amazon to enter a business with low margins and a low ceiling.
Amazon shipping doesn't have to grow into a dominant position. All it needs to be is a big enough threat that they can negotiate better rates with outside parties.
Amazon is doing a very low margin business themselves. They already have their warehouses throughout the country, they can just start with going into delivering packages for their own business, and expand slowly into logistics for others.
amazon is doing a lot in this field already and unfortunately its not good news for regular folk who will be employed in that field.
UPS offers highest salaries and benefits to its unionized workers and drivers.
FedEx is ok with most of its drivers working as independent'owner operator' drivers.
Amazon hires staffing companies and locol third party fleet companies thus providing 0 benefits and job guarantees while paying lowest salaries in the industry.
Not sure why richest man in the world Bezos thinks Amazon should be paying less than $13/hr while both Apple store employees make $20/hr and up
I believe there is a key difference between Amazon and Apple that is worth mentioning.
Amazon is largely a reseller(bar it’s in house developed products like Kindle/Alexa and store branded products) with far lower gross margins than Apple.
Apple has the highest retail gross sales(and associated high margins) in the world.
Many look to Apple/Google/Facebook as leaders in compensation, benefits, perks.
But they are the exceptional companies that have wide Warren Buffett “moats” to protect their high margins.
McDonalds and Amazon(distribution operations, not software dev)have far more in common in value proposition and business model in terms of margins/compensation than Apple and Amazon.
Does Costco offer profit sharing and/or employee stock units?
Would,it be worth including that in the total long-term equation?
Every single hourly Amazon distribution worker from the first 5-7 years of the company would be multi-millionaires now had they exercised and held their options.
More recent hourly distribution employees of Amazon would have also done quite well in the most recent 5-7 years with stock units granted.
But I think you raise a good point about comparing Costco with Amazon.
I’d Be keen to compare their respective business models and total compensation systems for employees at the coalface.
On fedex, you are right about independent drivers - but they also contract to independent companies to do last mile deliveries and haul. I would think amazon would do the same as Fedex, which means these local companies would be inclined to switch to amazon if they get more business from them. Alternatively, these local companies would grow their business to handle both to de-risk their business.
