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Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

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Re: Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

#91

Post by cornishpixels »

Spooky23 wrote: post #2

Makes sense. Now I understand why UPS is delivering so late in my area, including having guys hanging out of UHaul trucks. FedEx ground is a dumpster fire, unless they are doing the smartpost thing where USPS delivers. In my area, they are almost as bad as Laser.

> Now I understand why UPS is delivering so late in my area, including having guys hanging out of UHaul trucks.

That's normal. Although at least here, it's Budget trucks. I must say, it was not very fun driving over 100 trucks from various Budget locations to the UPS depot, with 4 people.

Re: Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

#92

Post by GauntletWizard »

themagician wrote: post #58
AgloeDreams wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is going to vertically integrate shipping, no question. The market demands it, and Amazon will probably eventually ship more packages than any of its competitors. And, Bezos isn’t dumb, so he’ll build and sell this capacity to others. It AMAZES ME how unreported it goes that they are doing this right now. They are doing it hilariously upfront and clearly. They bought massive amounts of Sprinters for Amazon Del…

It’s pretty heavily reported my dude. You see articles about it as well as photos showing Amazon logistics planes all the time. Plus, you see the Amazon trucks all the time now. At least I do. What’s to report?

Frog realizes pot is boiling. Film at 11.

Re: Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

#93

Post by cornishpixels »

sokoloff wrote: post #22
marklabedz wrote: post #16

If Amazon made it possible for a customer to pick (and pay for the presumed incremental cost of) alternative carriers, they'd have a gold mine of data on customer WTP and carrier quality at the local level.

I suspect that Amazon does not want to put additional cognitive load on the purchaser right at the most critical point of the conversion funnel. As a customer, I want a delivery time/date and let Amazon figure out how to do it. They're presumably way better at it than I am. If Amazon fails at that, I want to be able to complain without feeling like "oh, it was my fault because I picked Rickshaw Bob as the carrier". W…

> They're presumably way better at it than I am.

That's laughable.

Re: Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

#94

Post by kube-system »

paulmd wrote: post #24
bransonf wrote: post #6

It’s to the point where I can’t blame Amazon for actions like these. The consumer has come to expect guaranteed overnight or 2 day shipping. When they don’t get that, they get really upset. Amazon doesn’t want its customers to get upset, and it can’t trust its shipping partners because they don’t have the burden of the consumer sentiment. No one blames FedEx for their late package these days, they blame Amazon. Heck,…

Amazon isn't helping anything by their "just in time" delivery model. If there is a truck going out that will allow 8-hour delivery, they will deprioritize the package for 40 hours and then mail it out on that truck. In turn, that leaves Fedex and UPS absolutely no margin for error. Package shipping errors happen, especially in the weeks before christmas when volume goes through the roof. But Amazon has wasted all th…

The closer companies squeeze just-in-time logistics to the limit, the more they are increasingly reliant on a flawless demand model.

It's the biggest reason I've stopped shopping at Walmart in recent years. I can't rely on being able to go to the store and expect that everything is in stock.

Let's dust off my old binomial probability skills:

Assume Walmart's just-in-time demand model is accurate to the extent that 1% of items in the store were misjudged and are out of stock. Let's say I go in for a shopping trip of 30 items. I'll have a 26% chance of being disappointed that one of the items I needed was out of stock, and I'll have to go somewhere else now.

Those are completely made up numbers, but it demonstrates how a seemingly small error can be a big inconvenience for someone.

Re: Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

#95

Post by chrisseaton »

sidlls wrote: post #90
chrisseaton wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah I see - they’re too good and should be hobbled so people who aren’t as good can keep up. Consumer looses out.

Not really. There are two outcomes that are more likely to happen than others, both of which are terrible for consumers. In one scenario, Amazon utterly destroys the ability of others to sustain their business, and then raises their own prices dramatically: a fairly typical monopoly scenario. In another there are two tiers: Amazon and everyone else, which is only marginally better. In both cases competition is reduce…

Instead of criticising Amazon for being able to achieve next-day delivery why don't you criticise FedEx for not being able to achieve it? We want to select out badly run inefficient businesses, not support them artificially. If there's a monopoly developing it's because everyone else is incompetent. Tackle them!

Re: Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

#96

Post by toomuchtodo »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #47
toomuchtodo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fedex mentions this is not a material amount of business. How Amazon operates it's last mile logistical network is unsustainable. These people will eventually churn out of the open air sweatshop that is delivering last mile for Amazon (Fedex's requirements are much less onerous on the ground/home delivery side, based on my conversations with both Amazon delivery drivers and Fedex ground and home delivery drivers). Ve…

After running the numbers from Amazon's presentation on starting your own delivery company, I came away thinking its a nice JOB. In order for it to be a good profitable business that allows you a life of leisure, you end up having to manage around 400 drivers and 200 trucks, and I'm not sure if that is possible to scale that high with their model.

Do a run with an Amazon driver and see the kind of job it is. I have, and it is not a job I'd have versus a traditional retail job. Agree with your point though that you're buying a job, not a business. Lots of better businesses to buy, lots of better jobs one could have.

Re: Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

#97

Post by thaumasiotes »

sokoloff wrote: post #22
marklabedz wrote: post #16

If Amazon made it possible for a customer to pick (and pay for the presumed incremental cost of) alternative carriers, they'd have a gold mine of data on customer WTP and carrier quality at the local level.

I suspect that Amazon does not want to put additional cognitive load on the purchaser right at the most critical point of the conversion funnel. As a customer, I want a delivery time/date and let Amazon figure out how to do it. They're presumably way better at it than I am. If Amazon fails at that, I want to be able to complain without feeling like "oh, it was my fault because I picked Rickshaw Bob as the carrier". W…

> I suspect that Amazon does not want to put additional cognitive load on the purchaser right at the most critical point of the conversion funnel.

> As a customer, I want a delivery time/date and let Amazon figure out how to do it.

The big problem here is that Amazon no longer offers you the ability to pick the delivery date. They'll tell you when your package will arrive, and you'll suck it up.

It's a huge step backwards from the old system, where slow shipping was free, two-day shipping was moderately priced, and one-day shipping was expensive. (Or, with Prime, two-day shipping was free and one-day shipping was $7.99.)

Under normal circumstances, I don't care which delivery company drops off my package. I might develop a preference if one of them is chronically late, or usually damages the package[1]. But I always care what the delivery date is!

[1] Guess what! Amazon's also stopped shipping individual books in boxes with bubble padding. Now they come in manila envelopes. And they usually take damage in transit from being squeezed by the envelope.

Re: Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

#98

Post by mountainofdeath »

croddin wrote: post #69
bdcravens wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We (my employer, Refund Retriever) has caught them just outright lying about deliveries before. https://www.refundretriever.com/blog/FedEx-Tracking-Error

This is probably due to an overworked worker pushed to meet some metric saying something is delivered when it isn't. I'm sure amazon will do everything they can with software using gps, pictures etc to make it harder to do that.

Indeed they are doing exactly that. I get a notification when the driver is a few stops away from me along with a map. They also take a picture of the package where they left it and it is all visible from the Amazon app.

Re: Amazon Blocks Sellers from Using FedEx Ground for Prime Shipments

#99

Post by justinmk »

sidlls wrote: post #90
chrisseaton wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah I see - they’re too good and should be hobbled so people who aren’t as good can keep up. Consumer looses out.

Not really. There are two outcomes that are more likely to happen than others, both of which are terrible for consumers. In one scenario, Amazon utterly destroys the ability of others to sustain their business, and then raises their own prices dramatically: a fairly typical monopoly scenario. In another there are two tiers: Amazon and everyone else, which is only marginally better. In both cases competition is reduce…

> then raises their own prices dramatically

When has that happened? How many times? And how much did it offset the previous period of low prices for consumers?

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