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Amazon Flex

flex.amazon.com

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Re: Amazon Flex

#251

Post by jonlucc »

chrisBob wrote: post #130

I see the appeal for people looking to work, but as a customer I strongly prefer UPS, FedEx or USPS. Last week I got a phone call: "Hi, are you home right now?" It turns out it was actually an Amazon Logistics delivery person, but that still isn't a question I really want to answer over the phone to some random person.

Would you feel better if the person said "Hi, I work for UPS; are you home right now?"? There's no authentication built into the phone call. Perhaps Amazon should use their apps to facilitate that kind of communication with something like a push message?

Re: Amazon Flex

#252

Post by jon-wood »

mirsadm wrote: post #143
popopje wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Package delivery is never a good experience in the UK i have my packages delivered to a friendly shop nearby - to my house, it's a nightmare. The collect+ system also works reasonably well, i take that option if offered. (where it's delivered to a local cornershop or similar and you walk to pick it up) I really feel there should be a gap in the market for "last mile" delivery to be solved properly, but i suspect ther…

Having moved from Australia to the UK, I can tell you the delivery services I've used so far (Yodel, DPD etc) are far superior than any service in Australia. They even deliver on Saturdays and Sundays. That's amazing.

You're the first person I've ever heard compare Yodel favourably to anything, deliveries must be truly awful in Australia!

Re: Amazon Flex

#253

Post by dankohn1 »

iridium127 wrote: post #227
dankohn1 wrote: post #165

This is a big step for Amazon, and one that I can imagine them eventually offering as a service to other companies that need to provide real-time delivery. And, $18 to $25 an hour represents close to a livable wage, although less than it seems once you take into account depreciation of your personal automobile (which is why the future transit and bike options are particularly intriguing.) But, it also calls out the n…

Hopefully they pay for car mileage in addition to the $18-$25/hr... (should be 57.5 cents per mile for business miles, apparently)... because that alone could easily amount to $18/hr.

I'm certain they don't separately pay for mileage.

Re: Amazon Flex

#254

Post by ekianjo »

uptown wrote: post #82
ekianjo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah, and who is going to confirm that the delivery is done, or walk in apartment buildings to deliver to the right door ? A robot ? Going to the last mile actually means going to the last centimetre as well. The car is not everything.

If we're capable of solving the challenges of self-driving cars, finding a way to implement large curb-side or driveway-side mailboxes with cameras and RFID trackers, or a "fetchbot" that retrieves a box from the car and rolls it into the house, seems like a trivial hurdle to overcome.

I have not seen many robots which can walk stairs without falling at 99.99% confidence yet for door-to-door delivery.

Investment of the systems you mention are high-investment, not worth it vs the cost of a human operator per hour. this may change as new buildings are being built with such facilities in mind, but I have not heard of anything like that yet.

So human deliveries have a pretty good future for the time being.

Re: Amazon Flex

#255

Post by jonlucc »

technofiend wrote: post #224
shawnee_ wrote: post #118

Q: Where can I deliver with Amazon Flex? A: Amazon Flex is available now in Seattle. It will be available soon in New York, Baltimore, Miami, Dallas, Austin, Chicago, Indianapolis, Atlanta and Portland. Smart move by Amazon to refrain from making any Bay-area city one of its test markets. It's like Amazon is saying "we don't need to prove this will work in the bubble; let's base our test data set on realistic markets…

I'm not surprised to see Houston excluded from this list due to size and low urban density, but I am disappointed.

Do you have Prime Now? I think the expanded list is the cities currently served by Prime Now.

Re: Amazon Flex

#256

Post by sgustard »

BrentOzar wrote: post #46

If they're launching now in major cities, I'm guessing drone deliveries aren't coming anytime soon. (Or this is insurance against the drone plan not working.)

The drone thing is a ways off; this is akin to Uber hiring drivers while working on driverless cars. The sad thing is the majority of jobs I hear about in the exciting new sharing economy are drivers and delivery people -- unskilled jobs that skilled engineers are furiously working on eliminating.

Re: Amazon Flex

#257

Post by tokenizerrr »

jschwartzi wrote: post #245
tokenizerrr wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how it is in America, I live in the Netherlands, but I haven't interacted with a cashier in a supermarket for a very long time. Every supermarket has self-checkout, and still some cashiers for people who don't want it, of course. But a lot less cashiers than a few years ago. You grab a scanner at the entrance, scan all your purchages and then you put the scanner away and pay at a terminal. The terminal p…

In the US, our self-checkout is a machine that stops the transaction and complains if you so much as breathe on the scale. It's terribly awkward to use, and so I much prefer to use a live cashier rather than suffer the incessant blathering of a machine that doesn't even bag my groceries for me.

I've not seen those machines. The ones I've seen you just scan everything as you put it in your bag, and then you pay. No cashier will bag your groceries for you either, and they will laugh at you if you ask. You do that yourself here, either way.

Re: Amazon Flex

#258

Post by bb101 »

crymer11 wrote: post #192

Interesting that they're requiring you to have an Android phone. I wonder if there are any specific reasons they're excluding iOS.

Amazon can probably control provisioning through their Amazon Appstore (which is Android-only).

Re: Amazon Flex

#259

Post by tokenizerrr »

ekianjo wrote: post #250
tokenizerrr wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I scan the item and put it in my bag. This is less work than putting it in a cart, waiting for the cashier to scan everything and then I pack it in my bag. I'm done a lot faster and have never even thought of it being any more work on my side. It may help that we never had people to pack your bags for you, which some countries seem to have.

Well in Japan the cashier does a lot more things for you. First they scan stuff. Then they place the items in a different cart in a proper order so that nothing is squashed by whatever is up or down, which makes it easier for you to pack things before you go. They also cut the bread in slices if you wish, or cut some extremities of the larger vegetables for your convenience. And that's in a country known for automati…

Ah. Here the cashiers have only ever scanned your groceries, and put them on a small conveyor belt that moves them to the side. You'll have to pack your bag yourself, and bread usually comes pre-sliced. I've also seen non-sliced bread being sold, but that is usually accompanied by a machine where you can have it sliced prior to purchase.

Re: Amazon Flex

#260

Post by thoman23 »

herge wrote: post #132
shawnee_ wrote: post #118

Q: Where can I deliver with Amazon Flex? A: Amazon Flex is available now in Seattle. It will be available soon in New York, Baltimore, Miami, Dallas, Austin, Chicago, Indianapolis, Atlanta and Portland. Smart move by Amazon to refrain from making any Bay-area city one of its test markets. It's like Amazon is saying "we don't need to prove this will work in the bubble; let's base our test data set on realistic markets…

Also, gentrification and the rights of workers in a sharing economy are still hot-button political issues in the Bay-area. Who's going to picket Amazon Flex in Indianapolis?

Can we please stop calling it the "sharing" economy? There is no sharing going on.
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