Amazon Wants to Deliver Stuff, Too? That's Weird
Maybe it'll work like this.
Photographer: Martin Divisek/BloombergOver the last 20 years, Amazon has taught us to buy everything on the web. At least in urban areas like mine, we are close to realizing the dream of a retail environment that consists entirely of storefronts selling food and alcohol, while delivery trucks whiz back and forth before diners beneath umbrellas. But is Amazon content with this amazing transformation? Hardly. Now, it seems, it wants to own not just our shopping, but the planes and trucks that deliver stuff to our doors.
In Bloomberg Businessweek, Devin Leonard reports on Amazon’s push into the shipping and logistics market. He makes a pretty strong case that if big shippers aren’t frightened by this development, they should be. “I fully expect Amazon to build out a logistics supply chain that others can use,” Leonard quotes former Amazon executive John Rossman as saying. “Over the next five years? I doubt it. Over 10 or 15 years? Oh yeah.”