Amazon Logistics Tracking

Most of the attention so far has been on fulfillment. That’s not surprising, given that Amazon’s shipping costs grew from $11.5 billion to $21.7 billion between 2015 and 2017. Last year, fulfillment accounted for 14.2% of net sales, up from 12.5% in 2015.

Industry estimates still peg Amazon as delivering some ​5-10%​ of its goods itself, complemented by a range of courier partnerships (​perhaps, soon to become direct competition) and their ​now famous (or infamous) relationship​ with the U.S. Postal Service.

As expected from Amazon, there are a number of other highly innovative (and slightly crazy ideas) in motion too, such as crowdsourced deliveries from ​external contractors​ (more on Flex’s development below), ​delivery to car trunks​, ​remote door access to Amazon couriers​, ​Amazon lockers​, apartment hubs​ and ​dozens of drone delivery patents​. The aforementioned ​franchise delivery business model​ recently joined the rank of Amazon delivery, giving Amazon the ability to grow its own courier network without having to shoulder too much of the financial burden. Amazon has also been rolling out more consumer-facing tracking ­capabilities with an app for U.S. customers to track ​exactly where their package is every step of the way.

With such an extensive delivery footprint, it’s no surprise Amazon is contemplating productizing its pickup and delivery service in the shape of ​Shipping With Amazon​, ​a third-party delivery service.