Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 124 posts

Re: Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS

#11

Post by opportune »

post_break wrote: post #3

I'm just happy because 9 times out of 10 USPS would mark my stuff as delivered and then deliver it the next day. I have yet to have an Amazon delivery go bad besides when they try to deliver to my work after 5pm. I recognize people have huge issues with amazon delivery drivers but my experience has been better than USPS.

Yep, at my apartment complex USPS and Fedex will often leave my packages in the completely wrong place (by one of the many entrances, sometimes outside of it). One time while I was exercising I saw the USPS guy spend 20 minutes trying to find the entrance to the post boxes. We have an Amazon Hub and amazon deliveries never have these kinds of problem.

Re: Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS

#12

Post by Shivetya »

Keverw wrote: post #4

Pretty amazing you can go from being a little tiny online bookstore to owning your own fleet of planes, trucks and vans. Very inspiring story. Also like when they are close to you, it tells you how many stops away they are in the app. So useful if you ordered something and excited to get it. However it seems when they used UPS packages would get here earlier like noon to 2PM, while Amazon own drivers seem to be a lit…

I am just amazed they determined buying the thousands, if not tens of thousands of trucks, recruiting and training drivers, and the logistics of it all, was better for them than what they could negotiate from the delivery giants and USPS.

I would assume they considered shipping items for others including pickup and delivery from customer homes. I just cannot believe it is only for delivery of their own goods

Re: Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS

#13

Post by KingMachiavelli »

post_break wrote: post #3

I'm just happy because 9 times out of 10 USPS would mark my stuff as delivered and then deliver it the next day. I have yet to have an Amazon delivery go bad besides when they try to deliver to my work after 5pm. I recognize people have huge issues with amazon delivery drivers but my experience has been better than USPS.

Same think with UPS, they marked a package's address as 'incorrect'. Then 3 days latter had it 'out for delivery' a second time but by the end of the day the tracking info reverted to just simply 'In Transit'.

I'm sure it's some dark pattern thing so that their employees have to mark everything as something other than late, damaged, or lost since otherwise it eats into their profits.

Re: Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS

#14

Post by khuey »

post_break wrote: post #3

I'm just happy because 9 times out of 10 USPS would mark my stuff as delivered and then deliver it the next day. I have yet to have an Amazon delivery go bad besides when they try to deliver to my work after 5pm. I recognize people have huge issues with amazon delivery drivers but my experience has been better than USPS.

15 minutes ago an Amazon driver left my package on the street in front of my building (in urban San Francisco) and marked it as "handed directly to a resident" in the system.

Amazon doesn't provide any discoverable way to complain about this either so I'm sure their internal metrics look great.

Re: Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS

#15

Post by jdsully »

paxys wrote: post #6
post_break wrote: post #3

I'm just happy because 9 times out of 10 USPS would mark my stuff as delivered and then deliver it the next day. I have yet to have an Amazon delivery go bad besides when they try to deliver to my work after 5pm. I recognize people have huge issues with amazon delivery drivers but my experience has been better than USPS.

Last week the USPS driver was clearly running behind on his route (which is fine), but then decided to mark my package as "could not access delivery location". Which is funny because: 1. USPS is the only carrier that has direct access into my building (because that's where the mailboxes are) 2. I was home all day and there was definitely no delivery attempt I'm guessing they have SLAs in place with Amazon that penali…

If they have an SLA then that is straight up fraud.

Re: Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS

#16

Post by peterwwillis »

Shivetya wrote: post #12
Keverw wrote: post #4

Pretty amazing you can go from being a little tiny online bookstore to owning your own fleet of planes, trucks and vans. Very inspiring story. Also like when they are close to you, it tells you how many stops away they are in the app. So useful if you ordered something and excited to get it. However it seems when they used UPS packages would get here earlier like noon to 2PM, while Amazon own drivers seem to be a lit…

I am just amazed they determined buying the thousands, if not tens of thousands of trucks, recruiting and training drivers, and the logistics of it all, was better for them than what they could negotiate from the delivery giants and USPS. I would assume they considered shipping items for others including pickup and delivery from customer homes. I just cannot believe it is only for delivery of their own goods

Amazon sent out 3.3 billion packages in 2017, and saves $2-$4 per package shipped if they handle it themselves. USPS, UPS and Fedex are all raising their rates. You do the math...

They also have 50 Boeing 767's, btw.

Re: Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS

#17

Post by JohnTHaller »

post_break wrote: post #3

I'm just happy because 9 times out of 10 USPS would mark my stuff as delivered and then deliver it the next day. I have yet to have an Amazon delivery go bad besides when they try to deliver to my work after 5pm. I recognize people have huge issues with amazon delivery drivers but my experience has been better than USPS.

Mine's definitely been worse. I had one go missing marked "handed directly to resident" for an item on a one day only sale that Amazon said they couldn't reship. Then the next day a neighbor's package was left at our building. I walked it over. Then two days later a package for someone the next street over was left at our building. I walked that over, too.

It doesn't seem like Amazon's delivery drivers know what they're doing at all.

Re: Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS

#18

Post by dpcx »

"Delivering" is kind of an overstatement - "shipping" maybe. I've placed at least a dozen orders over the last month. Almost half of them have been subsequently marked as "Get a replacement" (or whatever the text says). The Amazon delivery drivers seem to not be nearly as dedicated as UPS/FedEx drivers, at least in my area.

Re: Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS

#19

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

One side effect of the growth of Amazon is the replacement of "decent" jobs with absolutely soul sucking ones.

In the early 2000's I knew people that worked as delivery drivers for UPS or FedEx and it was a decent job. They seemed happy. Now I see the Amazon delivery people, and they look majorly stressed out as if they are on the edge of collapse. Many times they are delivering things at 10pm desperately trying to meet their quotas.

I think a lot of the same thing happened in the retail as well. I see the salespeople at malls or brick and mortar retail stores. Even though it is stressful, at least they get to be somewhat human in that they talk to people and have some degree of freedom to move around. Compare that with the Amazon warehouse workers whose every second has been planned out with maximally efficiency and who so afraid of losing their jobs that they are afraid to go to the bathroom.

It seems the "decent" jobs are going away, replaced by ones that turn workers into robots to better extract value from their labor.

Re: Amazon is now delivering half its own packages, rivaling FedEx and UPS

#20

Post by joshgachnang »

post_break wrote: post #3

I'm just happy because 9 times out of 10 USPS would mark my stuff as delivered and then deliver it the next day. I have yet to have an Amazon delivery go bad besides when they try to deliver to my work after 5pm. I recognize people have huge issues with amazon delivery drivers but my experience has been better than USPS.

Ordered a gift for delivery on Friday for a party Saturday. Driver shows up, didn't look at the instructions to access my building, texted me, immediately marked the package as undeliverable, left, and now it's sitting a weird limbo. UPS and USPS (and weirdly, Amazon Fresh..) never have issues.
Post reply on HN