There are three companies specialized at that kind of stuff in Germany (they also serve other EU countries): a DHL brancha service from Rhenus and Hermes (Otto's logistics arm, Otto is one of the oldest mail order companies in Germany and transitioned rather well to the "internet"). The latter also contracted to Amazon, but is working exclusively in-house for quite a while now.
Quite an interesting business, somewhere between standard parcel and LTL.
Amazon uses multiple delivery companies in Germany, including their own Amazon Logistics, Hermes, DHL standard, DHL Express, UPS, Pin AG and Deutsche Post Letter.
It usually depends on the location of the recipient.
Amazon logistics is very much a thing in Europe, the UK at least. I would say about 2/3rds of my parcels in London are handled by actual Amazon contractors rather than the other options, such as Royal Mail which would be the closest USPS equivalent.
And Amazon experimented (or is still experimenting) with building a logistics company to no longer depend on DHL. In the past i got sometimes packages delivered by „Amazon Logistics“ employees.
Interesting. There have been rumors that Amazon are planning to set up their own delivery service in Germany, so they could possibly go from losing money to making money with the delivery.
This might provide a good incentive to the postal infrastructure to improve their prices and service offerings. In lots of European countries the postal system is semi-privatised but still in a state of semi-monopoly. End-user logistics as provided by companies like DHL, PostNord and UPS are trying to get a foothold in the market, but at least here in Northern Europe we're still far from having a free market situation with different delivery options and competitive pricing. Sending packages – especially out of the country, like in the case of Amazon returns – can be prohibitively expensive.
If large companies like Amazon would threaten or effectively start to handle their own logistics, it just might force the market to open up a bit more.
Well, maybe we need a "delivery neutrality law" as well. In Germany it's the same story, DHL treats Amazon packages with utmost care and always delivers them on time, while anything else gets deprioritized. Guess the delivery companies don't have much choice here as Amazon packages make up 20-30 % of their parcel business now (at least in Germany), especially since Amazon is building up their own logistics in larger cities to compete with them.
If I recall correctly, DHL (Germany's largest delivery company, part of the former state post system) charges Amazon ~2 euros, while the end user price is between 5 and 6 euros.
It's common wisdom that most of the cost for delivery is in the last mile. Amazon has great leverage, because DHL certainly isn't making money on their deliveries - the intake scales with Amazon's large quantities, but the individual delivery does not.
It's a race to the bottom between the delivery companies, fueled mostly by sub-sub-contractors with very low wages, long hours and bad conditions. DHL has seen giant growth, but profits are falling apart.
In Germany Amazon is using third party carriers for the the first and middle mile of their own courier network, meaning the route from the FC to a sort center and between sort centers. That these trucks are Amazon branded doesn't mean they are owned and operated by them. This is not the core business of UPS and FedEx, so.
Here in Germany we have a nationwide network of those:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packstation
like a 24/7 automated post office.
Great for getting _and returning_ shipments not just from Amazon but from most any online merchant.
Also because they basically have warehouses and distribution centers in one. Instead of shipping your box to a distribution center and from there to your home, they just put it in the truck that delivers it to your door. At least that's what I've seen in Europe, but wouldn't be surprized that that is what they do in the US, too. I think they have direct 'peering' arrangements with DHL and others, in that the truck actually starts at Amazon or goes there the first thing in the morning.
I would love to see "independent" fulfilment centers. E.g. I order at my favorite company a few cities away, and my local fulfilment center (the former huge amazon warehose) processes it, and I get it next day. I could imagine a shipping flat, for all packages that go through "my" center. Note, I am not thinking "mom and pop" centers, I am imagining local joint ventures beween logistics/delivery companies and these huge warehouses/goods transportation centers. But still a few orders of magnitude smaller than Amazon. (For the Germans: all my Amazon packages go through Bad Hersfeld. Imagine that logistics center would be it's own company, maybe backed by DHL / Schenker / Trans-o-flex / ... I believe it has a critical size to be viable.)
Unfortunately, the free market is not going to bring me that...
Here in Germany, it seems delivery services are inefficient, stupid, and clumsy. When you order a package on Amazon, it will indicate a time range of delivery likeliness with a high degree of uncertainty. Then you'll get an email stating the package is going to be delivered tomorrow. Sometimes that actually happens. Time window: the whole day. They don't like to commit to a time until very short before delivery time. Which is usually when working people are not at home.
I tried signing up with DHL once only to find out that that gave me the opportunity to actually pay them for the privilege of not wasting their time trying to deliver to me when I'm not home. That sounds a bit backwards to me. Why would I pay them to make their life easier. I'm fine with them delivering to a neighbor or nearby dhl store. I'd tell them to do that if I had the chance. But I'm not going to pay them for the privilege. And that's just DHL, there are about five or so different companies that Amazon works with here plus some contractors.
So, they keep on wasting trying to deliver packages to people that, mostly, aren't home. The problem is of course made worse by the fact that there are multiple delivery companies each wasting time in the same way. I'd say a rather large amount of packages gets delivered to neighbors or wherever after the delivery people waste time trying to deliver to the right place. Predictably, there are a percentage of lost packages which then need to be reimbursed by Amazon, which no doubt impacts the delivery companies. So, on top of the lost time, they end up dealing with that as well. That's inefficient and stupid.
It strikes me that not having a working relationship with the people you deliver too is costing these companies a lot of money. Why is that? What's so hard here? They have no insight in when people are at home, what alternative delivery options would be convenient, etc. How hard can it be to coordinate this in a way that is less likely to be mutually disappointing?
So tue, the last mile really sucks with a lot of carriers. Here in Germany DHL used to be the Gold Standard for some time. But with ever increasing volumes it also became a pain, at least for Amazon deliveries. For others they are now offering things like selecting preferred delivery Dates while the package is still in transit.
Lockers are a great solution, the only thing better is having an employer that allows private packages to be shipped there.
I'm still not convinced that the Amazon logistics solution, leaving parcels at the door step of customers regardless, is such a good idea so.
Yeah, called direct fulfillment. Roughly 400 vendors a couple of years ago for Amazon.de alone. Should be more by now. Quite interesting, so. Not sure why Amazon never really pushed that instead of own fulfillment centers, would have reduced fixed costs by quite a bit IMHO.
Quite an interesting business, somewhere between standard parcel and LTL.
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