Amazon Is Widening Its Sway Over the Freight Industry
Trailers await.
Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images
The one-stop shop for handling freight and packages seems to be a thing of the past, with FedEx Corp. set to spin off its trucking business in June. United Parcel Service Inc. shed its trucking unit five years ago. Full-service brokerages can shepherd goods from the factory to a residential customer’s doorstep, but they do it by cobbling together transportation services of several providers.
The one big exception is Amazon.com Inc. The e-commerce giant continues to take more control of every aspect of shipping and warehousing for its own business and then opens these services to third parties to boost efficiency. The logistics industry has to snap to attention every time Amazon opens one of its transportation services to third parties because its operations are so large and on the leading edge of technology that any changes can have large ripple effects, especially on rates.