Amazon isn’t afraid to test the boundaries of their business, experiment, innovate or adopt new ideas. They already lease planes and run an airport in Germany. Amazon is ploughing ahead with drones for delivery. They’ve taken on groceries and within the hour delivery with Amazon Prime Now. They are adventurous.
And now it looks like Amazon is setting sail upon the briny and getting involved with freight shipping. The operation is formally called “1 Beijing Century JOYO Courier Service Co.” but what it means is that Chinese sellers can now access the US Amazon FBA network. Amazon will ship Chinese manufactured goods from the factory right to their fulfilment centres in the States.
It’s tantalising because Amazon is becoming very good at logistics. They embrace automation and robots to be very efficient at what they do.
Amazon’s hometown Seattle is a vibrant port on the US Pacific north west coast and with this move they’re hoping to tempt Chinese sellers into FBA by offering affordable freight passage by boat from China. Consignments can be transported by sea at a lower cost than traditional means and enter the Amazon ecosystem and be sold.
The logical end to this move is that Amazon will be able to offer a “from factory to shopper” end-to-end fulfilment service that will know the socks off anything currently available. It’s one to watch.
