USPS started delivering some Amazon packages the same day they arrive at its facilities, under a new pilot in which Amazon drops a second batch off midday, on top of its usual morning drop-off, according to Supply Chain Dive. Packages that come in between 12pm and 1pm get sorted by clerks and go out with postal carriers by 8pm, starting with 200 packages a day each in Morgantown, WV and Lake Havasu City, AZ, then 500 a day in Columbia, SC, from October 20, per a letter carriers’ union memo.
Amazon said the extra daily drop means shoppers who order later in the day can still get same-day delivery when USPS handles the last mile, which is nice for Amazon customers, but what do postal workers get out of the deal? Just when they think they’re halfway done with their day, Amazon comes and dumps another load of packages in their truck? This seems gratuitous.
Also, I thought Amazon and USPS were heading towards a breakup?
Why would they get deeper into bed together now? Someone’s about to get pregnant and this fling is going to get costly.
In March, I reported that Amazon planned to cut its USPS volume by more than two-thirds after the Postal Service moved to auction off its last-mile delivery capacity to the highest bidders instead of negotiating with Amazon directly, with their contract set to expire in September. A month later, they reached a new deal that cut Amazon’s volume by just 20%, keeping roughly 80% of the more than one billion packages USPS delivered for Amazon the year before.
As recently as last week, Business Insider reported that Amazon has a secret plan called Project Aurelian that aims to reach 95% of US ZIP codes with its own delivery network by 2029, replacing USPS in thousands of markets.
If USPS knows that Amazon eventually wants to be less dependent on their last-mile service (or completely independent of it), why would they allocate resources towards further serving this fly-by-night client? Do they need the money that badly? If I were USPS, I would’ve said, “Same-day delivery late in the day? That sounds like a you problem, Amazon.”
