Amazon’s new Delivery Service Partners program is designed to let entrepreneurs run their own delivery network of up to 40 blue vans with the Amazon Prime logo, according to the Associated Press.
For only $10,000, entrepreneurs will be able to open and manage their own delivery service handling Amazon packages. They will not be employees of Amazon but will be able to lease the vans and buy Amazon uniforms for drivers and get support from Amazon to grow their business.
According to the New York Times, the company says an entrepreneur could earn as much as $300,000 a year in profit by operating a fleet of up to 40 vehicles.
Algorithms will determine which packages are sent to Amazons 75 delivery centers across the country and which packages will be delivered by UPS, FedEx, and other delivery services. “This is all about scaling cost effectively,” said Dave Clark, senior vice president of Amazon Worldwide Operations.
Amazon’s growth in the e-commerce sector has been astounding and having greater control of its delivery network is essential to its Prime business, which delivers over 5 billion packages a year globally. “We are going to have to meet this growth, and it’s outpacing the growth of our core providers,” Clark said.
Delivery is customer-friendly
One big advantage of the new delivery service will target customers – A customer will be able to track their packages on a map, contact the driver or change where a package is left — all of which can’t be done if the package is in the back of UPS or FedEx trucks.
Amazon is also testing a number of programs that could replace or reduce its reliance on its delivery partners. It has a fleet of cargo planes it calls “Prime Air” and is getting ready to test a new service that has company couriers picking up products from businesses that sell goods through Amazon and delivering them to Amazon warehouses – a chore currently done by UPS and other services.
The new delivery business program is also separate from Amazon Flex which pays drivers from $18 to $25 an hour to deliver packages using their own vehicles.
As for President Donald Trump’s public criticism of Amazon’s use of the U.S. Postal Service, Clark said: “This doesn’t play into that debate at all.” He added that Amazon has a great relationship with all their delivery services, including the post office. “This is really about meeting growth for our future,” he said.
