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Amazon Prime 1 Day Shipping Kuebix

What Amazon’s One-Day Delivery Promise Means for Supply Chains

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Amazon is once again raising the bar for speed of delivery with its announcement that the company’s new goal is to make 1-day delivery standard for Prime customers. Amazon’s 2-day free shipping guarantee has already had huge implications on supply chains, so much in fact that the term the “Amazon Effect” was coined just to describe it.

The Amazon Effect is a trend where customers expect incredibly fast delivery, full visibility to tracking information, and great customer service because of the experience they get with Amazon Prime deliveries regularly. Customer expectations have increased because Amazon has proven it’s possible to deliver products in just 2 days, and to do it for free.

How Does Amazon Plan to Make 1-Day Delivery a Reality?

Amazon has laid out an aggressive strategy to make their 1-day standard delivery promise a reality. The company has announced that they will be greatly expanding their Delivery Service Partner program by incentivizing current employees to open their own package delivery businesses. Current employees will be offered $10,000 and three month’s pay to open their own delivery business, greatly reducing the risk and difficulties associated with staring a new company.

By removing many of the barriers to entry, Amazon hopes to expand the number of available trucks to deliver final mile packages across the country. With more available capacity to hand, Amazon will be able to get products to end customers faster. According to Amazon, entrepreneurs who take advantage of this new incentive program will have access to logistics technology, insurance, and support to be successful. Delivery partners who expand their fleets to 40 vehicles can earn as much as $300,000 in annual profits.

As Amazon increasingly replaces human labor in their warehouses with technology, this is also a strategy to move employees into new, fruitful positions with upward mobility. Many employees who may find their jobs in jeopardy of being replaced by robots can make the switch now to being delivery partners. Amazon is not only encouraging current employees to begin final mile shipping operations; the company will also be reimbursing military veterans up to $10,000 to start their own programs.

What Does This Mean For Companies With Their Own Supply Chains?

Customer expectations are about to rise again. Companies with freight to ship will need to work even harder to deliver superior customer experiences without going into the red. Every business will need to emphasise fast shipping and complete shipping visibility in order to compete with the outstanding service Amazon provides its customers.

What Can Companies Do to Keep Up With Increasing Customer Expectations?

Companies need to leverage network-based technology like Kuebix TMS to optimize their supply chains and connect to the greatest number of opportunities to collaborate with other businesses.

It isn’t feasible for most companies to create their own extensive private fleets like Amazon is doing with its Delivery Service Partner program. Instead, businesses need to connect with capacity already available in the industry to find opportunities to cut back on costs and improve speed of delivery.

Programs like Kuebix Community Load Match help shippers quickly and easily connect to a vast ecosystem of dedicated truckload carriers. Through Community Load Match, shippers can receive spot quotes and book loads without needing to pick up the phone.

Amazon is expanding their network by incentivizing employees to create delivery services. Other shippers can expand their networks by leveraging Kuebix to access new, valuable sources of capacity alongside their negotiated carrier rates.

Kuebix - Amazon Prime Day

Amazon Prime Day’s Impact on the Supply Chain

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Amazon Prime Day kicks off today at 3:00 PM EST and is one of the biggest e-commerce days of the year, with sales growing over 60 percent year-over-year since 2016. Prime Day features deep discounts for Amazon Prime members and will generate sales to rival those of the holiday season, even during one of the year’s lowest sales periods. Retailers supplying the 560M+ items available every day on Amazon in the USA are upping their game with the help of technology to meet expectations for quick deliveries and excellent service by optimizing their shipments and improving visibility.

Amazon Prime Day is like Black Friday, only in July, and demonstrates how consumers’ adoption of e-commerce shopping is growing at a pace that far exceeds expectations. E-tailers shipping into Amazon fulfillment distribution centers (FDCs) are focusing on improving efficiencies within their supply chains and streamlining operations to keep pace with the increased volume. By leveraging the power of technology, retailers are lowering transportation costs, finding needed capacity, and gaining visibility into operations to ensure customer service expectations are met.

Prime Day comes at a time of year that has been traditionally slow for the supply chain industry. There aren’t any major holidays, and back-to-school hasn’t quite started. However, the popularity of the event coupled with the capacity crisis and driver shortage are causing roadblocks for some retailers who haven’t already optimized their supply chains. To keep up with the heightened order volume, retailers must streamline internal processes, ship products more efficiently and maintain a heightened level of visibility to order line items.

Retailers are turning to technology to improve their internal processes through order integration, rate-comparison and freight pay and audit features. Global logistics communities are uniting carriers and shippers to find optimal routes to share assets and fill empty miles. Powerful optimization tools are consolidating loads and planning the most efficient routes to cut down on transit time as well as costs. All these processes are being made possible by technology and are helping to combat the capacity crunch by making shipping more efficient and utilizing assets to their fullest.

Amazon has set the bar high in terms of order visibility. Companies are now taking advantage of technology to gain visibility into their supply chains, resulting in superior customer service and more efficient operations. The adoption of technology like tracking devices, on-board computers, and cloud-based portals means that retailers can collaborate with carriers to improve performance. Carriers can provide an updated status of their delivery so that retailers know where goods are at all times and when to expect their arrival. If a delay is going to happen, the customer can be alerted, which improves satisfaction.

The industry is braced for “Christmas in July” as the countdown to Prime Day draws to a close. The deep discounts on more than one million items, both Amazon-branded products as well as items from third-party sellers, are guaranteed to have a large impact on the supply chain this year. In order to keep up with increased order volume and inventory turns, shippers are turning to technology to improve their processes and speed up delivery.

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