Amazon have opened a new delivery depot in Hedge End (just off the M27 between Southampton and Portsmouth) for their Amazon Logistics courier operation.
What’s interesting about the opening is the number of jobs it’s expected to support – 20 onsite workers and another 140 drivers working with eight independent local courier companies.
140 full time drivers working to delivery Amazon’s parcels from one relatively small depot on the South Coast takes Amazon Logistic’s delivery stations to 14 in the UK. If they’re all around the same size we can estimate 280 warehouse workers and somewhere in the region of 2,000 delivery drivers working for Amazon.
Royal Mail employ somewhere in the region of 124,000 postmen and women, that means Amazon employ 1.42% the number of couriers that Royal Mail do. However the impact is worse for Royal Mail as Amazon are taking lucrative parcels business away from Royal Mail and leaving them to continue the Universal Service having to deliver letter post to each and every door in the country six days a week.
It’s testament to Amazon’s growth in the UK that they can invest in their Amazon Logistics courier business. If any one was still in doubt as to whether they should be listing their products on the Amazon marketplace this should be the incentive for them to get started.
9 Responses
Yes amazon will be taking parcel business. Like EVERY courier company in the country in the past few decades.
And not just from royal mail – but from competitors too. Was anyone concerned when UPS started delivery? When Citilink? When TNT?
Amazon doing their own deliveries is an obvious next step for a company with so much volume, cost cutting and near 24 hour deliveries is likely to be the targets here, but unlike Amazon their courier company seems to have mixed reviews / a bad reputation that comes close to Yodel.
I was told that the routing of the deliveries is done in Seattle, i do not know if this is still the case, but it seems odd that an American can decide the best routing for deliveries in the UK with likely no prior experience of the UK landscape etc.
On the few times that Amazon logistics did deliver to me i found that one of the drivers they employed was a complete idiot, he could not find my parcel in his small van and when he left without making my delivery he did not bother to close the side door of the van, instead he drove along and slammed the breaks on hard more than once to try and close the door, i am sure the parcels were flying everywhere in the back of his van, and he would have had no clue if parcels had fallen out of the door due to his stupidity.
Amazon logistics have not been my way for a while now but i have read many complains and comments that Prime members were going to cancel their subscription due to Amazon logistics.
DPD are generally seen as the market leaders, i am sure they have their own complaints to deal with but in general they are a quality service that Amazon customers are accustomed to, i think Amazon logistics are a very very long way off DPD at the moment.
and ebays answer ?
drop it off at Argos
LOL !LOL !
Ebay should of bought Citylink.They could of got it for nearly free and invested in it.If they want to compete with Amazon and standalone websites they need to cut the courier costs for sellers.If they dont Ebay will find they are slowly destroyed.
Ebay answer, do nothing.
Let the idiots at Amazon go Bankrupt. Surely the Ponzi scheme at Amazon cant continue where they simply dont make money!!!!!”
Derek – would hardly call tens of billions not making any money. Not making much profit is a different matter. Investing in the business by opening depots will help keep profits down. And all that growth to get as big as they are in 20 years? Low profits most years.
Amazon has made very small profits, and clearly operates a very low profit margin policy. These things nearly always meet a sticky end.
Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity.
Amazon Logistic – I always sigh when I see they are delivering my parcels. There is no tracking number provided, deliveries to commercial addresses late at night. Its a bit like yodel in the old days – poor comms and even poorer delivery.
As a post man based in Hedge End I am concerned that our reliance on the volume Amazon business will result in job losses. This has certainly been the case in other locations where direct deliveries have been implemented.