Amazon moves further into deliveries
Amazon isn't playing nice with the President.
The White House has lamented the company using the US Postal Service for deliveries but it continues to look like they're shifting towards their own delivery service. Not only that, but they're buying foreign vans to do it (however the vans will be manufactured in a new factory in North Carolina).
The WSJ reports Amazon has ordered 20,000 Mercedes-Benz vans as part of a plan to build a delivery fleet. The operation will work something like a franchise agreement with up to 500 companies being allowed to operate Amazon vans, which will be owned by fleet-management companies.
From the WSJ: "UPS says on its website it owns roughly 119,000 package cars, vans, tractors and motorcycles. FedEx says its Ground operation, which also uses a contractor model, has more than 60,000 vehicles, while its Express division has more than 100,000."
Err, that's not that long of a way to go.
Anyway, the story here isn't really about the White House, it's more about Amazon's relentless competitive drive to dominate ecommerce, if not commerce in general, if not everything.
