Lights Out Warehouse
Please consider New Amazon Machines Pack 600 Orders Per Hour, Could Replace Thousands of Jobs.
The new machines, known as the CartonWrap from Italian firm CMC Srl, pack much faster than humans. They crank out 600 to 700 boxes per hour, or four to five times the rate of a human packer, the sources said. The machines require one person to load customer orders, another to stock cardboard and glue and a technician to fix jams on occasion.
Including other machines known as the “SmartPac,” which the company rolled out recently to mail items in patented envelopes, Amazon’s technology suite will be able to automate a majority of its human packers. Five rows of workers at a facility can turn into two, supplemented by two CMC machines and one SmartPac, the person said.
Amazon is not alone in testing CMC’s packing technology. JD.com Inc and Shutterfly Inc have used the machines as well, the companies said, as has Walmart Inc, according to a person familiar with its pilot.
“A ‘lights out’ warehouse is ultimately the goal.”
Machine in Action
Opportunity to Quit
TechCrunch reports Amazon Offers Employees $10K and 3 Months Pay If They Quit
But there’s a catch. They have to start their own delivery business instead.
The retailer says it will fund startup costs up to $10,000, as well as the equivalent of three months of the former employee’s last gross salary, to give the employees the ability to get their new business off the ground without worrying about a break in pay.
Amazon said last year that people were able to start their own delivery business with only $10,000. At the time, military veterans were able to get that $10K reimbursed, as Amazon was investing a million into a program that funded their startup costs.
Employees — or any other entrepreneur — who wants to become a delivery partner, are able to lease customized blue delivery vans with the Amazon smile logo on the side, and take advantage of other discounts, including fuel, insurance, branded uniforms and more.
Delivery partners, meanwhile, could earn as much as $300,000 in annual profit by growing their fleet to 40 vehicles, Amazon claims. The company said last year it expected that hundreds of small business owners will come to hire tens of thousands of drivers across the U.S.
Directly Competing With UPS, FedX
It’s clear where this is headed: Amazon will directly compete with UPS and FedX.
If Amazon can offer retailers reduced costs and faster delivery, why wouldn’t businesses take it?
Real Example
Consider what happened to me two weekends ago. I was at Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, staying at hotel in Moab, Utah.
A star tracker that I use for photographing the night sky broke. I wanted another ASAP and paid $50 extra for overnight delivery. I placed the order Thursday morning at 9:00 AM. I should have received it Friday, but didn’t.
UPS does not deliver on Saturday. Prime does. I did not get my star tracker until Monday. I lost three days of being able to photograph the night sky the way I wanted.
These camera stores offer free 2-day shipping on most items.
If and when Amazon offers a deal to such places, they may be able to free one day shipping or save money on two-day shipping.
Mish Moments
Please check out my Photography Website: Mish Moments.
Union vs Non-Union
UPS is union-based with union costs and pension costs.
UPS is the single largest employer in the Teamsters Union. The UPS contract is the largest collective bargaining agreement in North America.
UPS will not be able to compete with Amazon on costs. UPS is doomed.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Lmao bring it on Amazon. Amazon is where you go to get all the bull shit you are to lazy to go to the store to get. As a ups driver we ship legal documents-medical supplies-ORGANS-and hazmats. I don’t think you will be buying a kidney or liver from amazon anytime soon. Secondly the single most important thing at ups by far is SAFETY SAFETY and then some more SAFETY. Amazon drivers don’t and will never have 1/10 the safety training we have. Once the loopholes to amazon weaseling their way out of lawsuits from contractors mowing over and killing people close and once their drivers start causing fatalities (and it will happen) the lawsuits and negative press will be to much for anyone to bear. Damn right ups is union and with that comes relentless SAFETY TRAINING- a very livable wage-benefits-pension etc. You won’t catch a ups driver pissing in a bottle at a red light-speeding through a school zone or driving up somebody’s ass. Our motto out of the Philadelphia airport hub is “if you have to think about it DONT do it” Safety safety safety. If you think homeowners don’t notice the difference between a safe and unsafe delivery company you could not be more wrong. When i see a amazon driver at a wawa or something and i ask them why do you do the same exact work i do for $17 hour with piss poor benefits when you know ups drivers are at almost $40 hour with great benefits and fed ex & usps are all over $30 hour that’s when it sets in that their job sucks. Amazon “drivers” will be looking to leave that company at every chance they get. Ultimately they continuous turnover and complete disregard for SAFETY will bite them in the ass. No one is willing to or should have to loose a loved one for free next day shipping.
No doubt, this article shows that the writer has no idea what he’s talking about.
Just so you know… UPS delivers on Saturday. The business you ordered from probably didn’t ship it with the correct service for you to receive it on Saturday.
Ups delivers on sat. Did you research anything?
He either did not.. or there is an agenda here.
Correct your story please. UPS DOES deliver on Saturdays and has for more than 15 years that I know of. Probably wherever you were ordering from could not fill the order to get it to you by the day you wanted. NEVER will EVERYTHING on the planet be in stock to be avaliable to be shipped to you within a day, PERIOD. Hello reality. You have no clue how stores or shipping companies work.
I just watched a Vice special about Amazon and i am so glad i am a teamster with UPS and will never lose my job to a robot. The Amazon employee said the company may say the robots are helping employees but that could not be further from the truth, the company is absolutely aiming to phase out human labor and the robots are far from as efficient as Amazon makes them out to be.
We (UPS) are not a retail based company and have diverse contracts with many more companies and entities we ship for ranging from industrial, government and retail. This profession requires a human labor force to handle ship and sort packages with human discretion and abstract thinking, their robots are still not able to perform. If you think we UPS Teamsters are going to lose our jobs or UPS is going to out of business because a single company is offering to deliver their own packages…you’re absolutely insane and clearly have no idea what UPS does and the number of packages including Amazon packages, we ship everyday.
Maybe one day, we will have a rating system for the companies we buy from. It would tell us how ethically they treat their employees, how many robots they employee vs how many humans. It will come to a time, when nearly all big box stores are mostly run by technology, from warehouse to cashier, stockers, etc. They even have robots who clean the floors now a days. If I have the option to buy from a place with a good score, who treats their employees like humans, doesn’t offshore their call center, actually makes a product in the USA, maybe uses renewable energy to flush the toilets many people would buy from them, possibly at a premium price, or maybe just slightly higher. If A company had a low score, their prices would reflect that and people would choose that option. Maybe the cheaper option would be taxed higher to offset the low wages they pay? Pie in the sky I know, but a guys gotta dream of a better way than we have now.
Hopefully these employees and others who choose to deliver for Amazon look very closely at the fine print on their contracts. I would guess they are similar to Trucking contracts young truck drivers sign when they lease a truck from the company they are driving for. What they often wind up with is extremely sub par pay, (don’t believe the high pay they tell you you ‘can’ make) often even losing money at times and unable to get out of the contract till it expires. They you have no amazon job, your delivery job dreams are shot, and they take back your blue delivery buggy. I would also think twice before I crossed the Teamsters, you do that in Chicago or New York and you might well find yourself in a world of hurt you wouldn’t understand not being in organized labor.
You probably shouldn’t manage your own money, let alone offer advice to other people…
7 day service is coming.
Apparently Mish you dont understand how Amazon works because you forgot the first step which is receiving, then the next step if stowing, then the next step is picking and then packing, then you have to put stuff back on the shelf, and there are damages. All of these steps have to have people working, not machines so the lights out bs is never gonna happen
UPS absolutely delivers on Saturdays! Also, you can choose for your PKG to delivered by 9:00am in select areas on Saturdays.
EAMs- Early Air Morning deliveries. Costs a bit, but are treated like gold.
Amazon will have to buy UPS or FEDEX so they deliver to every house and not every 20th they now do.
Who is going to train these drivers speeding through our neighborhoods? Who is responsible when one of these drivers kill a kid? Its Amazon’s products, they should be but the little guy gets hosed and loses his business while Amazon makes its money. Who is going to teach the machines how to pack hazardous materials they ship safely so no one gets Injured. Amazon when’s again. They get all the money and none of the responsibilities.
There are just as many non-union positions at UPS as there are union.
I honestly think Amazon can be competitive on several levels…it’s just a matter of time before it happens. It’s not always about the money that UPS drivers and other union employees (or non-union) make. Amazon treats their employees great and sometimes that’s better than monetary gain. In my opinion, UPS still has a long way to go. The level of employee satisfaction there is very low.
And what is this level of dissatisfaction based on? Ups drivers all make a minimum of $65k (starting off) $100k after 3 years of driving plus great benefits that you don’t pay into-vacation-holiday and sick pay. Please tell me where you got this level of dissatisfaction crap. Until then go back to your peanut gallery.
Mish, I can’t take your under informed, miscalculated, half witted asumptions anymore. Your logic is so anecdotal it makes me nauseous. The previous comments say a lot, you obviously don’t know what the hell you are talking about. Don’t bother doing financial analysis, no one takes you serious anyway.
To the person who wrote this article.
Hello, my name is Pete. I want my 5 minutes of my life back for reading your ludicrous article. At now point in time did it make sense. Your constant rambling is just , well stupid and have no facts. UPS delivers on Saturday. And who is going to deliver for Target? Gap? Walmart?
You , sir, are an uneducated moron.
I work for Ups, I’ve been with the company for almost 12 years, in all honesty we aren’t perfect, maybe other companies do it better than us, that doesn’t mean I only work half hearted. For instance come Christmas time the average driver at Ups is delivering almost 160 or more deliveries a day, sometimes this goes past Christmas all the way into March. We work an average 10-12 hour day, walk 24 miles a day, take an average 35,000 to 55,000 steps depending on the day, or climb over 223 floors in a single day. Really in all honesty, don’t forget Amazon, you might be big, might be massive, but never forget how you first got started, Ups, FedEx, and all the other major companies that helped you get started. You wouldn’t even be here today, had they not given you that opportunity to start in the market, the good rates they gave you or how about when you had no way to get all those orders delivered, you don’t think that some of these companies considered maybe we could have cornered the market, and forced Amazon out of business, no it’s called sharing a market, Amazon might be strong, but we helped them get to where they are today. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Also we believe in creating jobs, not destroying, think about what you do when you cut more jobs out of the market, people need to make money in order to buy your products. Good companies make more business for everyone to profit from not just one company and then fire all your employees. Enough ranting for today, check your facts before you post, do some research, hear it from the horse’s mouth.
Ups and fedex shot themselves in the foot for helping amazon after amazon started delivering its own stuff. Fedex got out but its to late.
Amazon will never harm UPS , but our economy ? See UPS employees will soon be right at 100k a year , wail Amazon employees need to use social services provided by tax payers to give them benifits greedy owners of Amazon will not . Union looking hard at representing workers at Amazon before changes in goverement brake them up . As of right now import taxs on their products will have huge effect on their staff and consumers , they may not even absorb that with out gov bail out . And to the preson who wrote this , UPS dose not package anything but is a shipping company only . Coddos for Amazon in tech part of packaging .
I missed that part that said that Amazon workers weren’t allowed to work for UPS or gain the skills needed for a higher paying job. There is never any talk at all about advancing ‘low income’ workers from low income… Yuppies need minorities as their servant class – to wait on them at restaurants, walk their dogs, fetch them coffee see where I am going with this??
Who wants those thugs coming up
To your door and looking into your home with your family rite thier!?!? Have you seen those criminals?!? Look like they are doing a rap video!! UPS is the most professional and courteous parcel
Company and I would gladly pay extra for them to ship my things and come into my property any day! You pay for what you get
This is ridiculous click bait on its face and contains factual errors in the main article. You should be ashamed to publish this trash if you can’t be bothered to do a little research first. UPS not only delivers on Saturday, they even offer an option to guarantee it is delivered before 9am in most places. Pay more attention to the shipping options and details and you will probably find your anecdotal proof was user error on your end or the business you purchased it from.
You may get a lot of clicks short term but the obvious lazy and error filled reporting will ultimately get your site relegated to the junk pile with the sites that take money to write thinly veiled advertisements masquerading as journalism.
I am driver for UPS… Since when is being a union bad? We do get compensated better than any Amazon driver.. but they are also not trained.. Amazon only cares about production which ups also does too but ups is 1000000000 miles ahead of having a better organization of how to get packages delivered.. these articles really just don’t understand how unrealistic it is to put fedex or ups out of business. Hundreds and hundreds thousands not employees. We are trained better, work harder, and our routes and production we put out on a daily basis is worth multi billions specially over the next 40 years good luck Amazon but u’ll just keep using already established delivering companies bc it benefits you
The real story here is the machine. 1) It reduces the amount of cardboard per box by not having all the excess flaps. 2) no plastic tape to be used. 3) automated sizing of products no excess material used or wasted space in the box ( I am tired of getting an item in a box that is way to big and they have to use plastic air bags to protect shifting).
The loses here will be the cardboard box company, the winners will be the cardboard sheet suppliers and the machine company.
Overall the machine should reduce shipping cost ( less cardboard, less labour, less wasted space in boxes).
There is two stories here that are unrelated
Just wait till they automate the delivery ( automated loading of trucks, pre generated vehicle tracking and route assigning, automated unloading or parcel delivery to either the driver or even to the house)
The next step driver will not even have to think. 1) Get in the van, it will already be pre loaded. 2) driver will just follow the gps/tracker, stop at address 3) box and packages will automatically be presented to the driver to take to customer. No mistakes as gps and bar code scanning will be on top of it all. 4) get back in can and repeat. No thinking, no time wasting.
Man I like this machine though the Cartonwrap, there is a company that is doing some good R&D.
What a load. Amazon has more that pick and pack… goody…does the author understand that is an internal Amazon process and has nothing to do with UPS. Amazon can’t get people to take their deal.
10k doesn’t cover the cost of a contractor start up
You also fail to mention how many contractors you need to make 300k…and that you will need to pay workers comp, insurance and pay for those vans. If Amazon is so good at delivery, why do they only deliver 25% if their own volume… shouldn’t they deliver all of their own volume before they put the largest and most profitable transportation company in the world out of business?
No way. FedEX Express gets less than 10% of revenue from Amazon and it is shrinking as they do their own thing. Good riddance, too. Let their underpaid and overworked employees deal with it.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Amazon can’t run ups and fedex out of business. Ridiculous
Looks like the pension will be in trouble. They are 92% funded (their math), assuming a 7% return on assets, and assuming membership is steady.
Looks to me like UPS employees comprise ~20% of teamsters membership. When automated trucking comes, this is going to get ugly.
Automated trucking? Good luck with that. In 25 years maybe. That technology will be used in much smaller countries for a decade or more before it ever becomes feasible for the United States on a large scale.
The Teamster’s pension may be in trouble, but I doubt if that will affect UPS. If I’m not mistaken, UPS essentially paid off the Teamster’s to take control of the pension plan. It is no longer a responsibility of UPS.
I agree with the various authors who disagree with you. UPS does deliver on Saturday’s, you could have gotten your package.
The idea that with 40 drivers they can not $300,000 a year is poor business math.
As for ththe union issue, with a 62% turnover rate of their inside employees, and drivers working and making deliveries up to 9pm Ave tearing up their vehicles; it while management is making 6 figures between salary and stock bonuses and options, and will not be too long before Amazon get unionized. Then what?
Oh puleez, I hate to say it but many of these Amazon drivers that you speak of along with most ‘gig’ workers are unemployable in most other areas of the US economy especially most white collar corporate jobs in places like NYC & Boston. You know the truth ‘hurts’ but I am ABSOLUTELY right. As far as these poor drivers ‘tearing up their vehicles’ and the rest of your bleeding heart diatribe – they are free to advance their skills for higher paying jobs where we are in the best job market in history.
“….unemployable in most other areas of the US economy especially most white collar corporate jobs in places like NYC & Boston. ”
Sorry to burst a bubble you may have been fed since birth, but “most white collar corporate jobs in places like NYC & Boston” consist solely on sitting around playing office while collecting welfare from The Fed and government regulators. Anyone can do that. Which is exactly the point of financialization and totalitarian government in the first place.
You should really do some research before you publish an article. Of course UPS offers Saturday delivery! And it arrives at your house more reliably than Amazon’s deliveries do.
To me its not my responsibility if something gets delivered or not. If it doesn’t and Amazon doesn’t make it right I just do a chargeback on my credit card..
There will be a lot of damage.
It’s not the union that’s the problem or the packing machines that put’s UPS out of business. It’s the tech buzz that convinces people and under cutting competitive shipping rates. At some point it all goes back to the same shipping price.
I doubt they will put UPS out of business. I worked for UPS and their range of services as a well the way it’s organized actually is hard to match for the Uber/Postmates style delivery companies. I worked for Postmates too btw.
UPS/ FedEx are third-party shippers. We’re not in manufacturing, therefore we don’t have a need for machinery as CMC. The only thing this helps Amazon with is; keeping it’s people under payed and having lower prices.
UPS does offer Saturday delivery, and even Sunday delivery in certain markets.
Amazon drivers have also mis-delivered packages, this is not unique to any single carrier.
Think too about Amazon’s own profit projections for this venture, it works out to $7500 annually per vehiclen harxley groundbreaking for the operator (not to mention at some point they will end up having to meet DOT regulations of a commercial carrier)
Exactly! Can you even imagine managing/being responsible dozens of employees and thousands of deliveries every day? I can. It’s not worth what they are paying to the “owner.”
UPS is great, except for the cost. And FEDx is catching up to them. UPS makes a mockery of fedex services, being someone that ships a lot I know. Fedex independent contractor drivers are the worse. I suspect Amazon will be no better but if they are cheaper they’ll still get business. Just be careful what you ship. Of course, the union will press forward with pay raises, etc and we’ll end up with another GM on our hands.
I wonder if the clerk(not the pm) that works in my local town of 1100 people that made $74k last year is worried?
The past few UPS labor contracts have actually been pretty favorable for UPS and pay raises as a % have gone down. Even if pensions are phased out UPS and the union will be fine. It’s a unique relationship that actually works. The predicted demise of UPS at the hands of the union has been long overdue according to many pundits and armchair analysts. Eventually it’s just lazy low hanging fruit.
Nice to finally meet you! I hope your name isn’t Rob as well!
I don’t get why Amazon if offering $10k for people to start a delivery business. Seems like their long term goal would be to have automated delivery. And if they lack delivery people, it would likely cost less to use UPS or Fedex than to fork over $10k.
People are willing to work much harder, for much less, to keep their own business afloat, than they are on someone elses time clock. To the point where it’s not unfathomable that a swarm of independent shippers can manage to coordinate a good share of deliveries cheaper than a big centralized entity.
Not with anything like the consistency and reliability of the centralized entities.
That’s what the Soviets assumed as well….. First economically and industrially. Then wrt sending a huge superpower army to beat up on a bunch of completely non centralized ragtops in the Afghan mountains…..
None of which means the same will work equally well for package delivery, vs an entrenched UPS. But with the improved means of communication people have now, vs when UPS rose to prominence, it’s not entirely far fetched, either.
Yes in places like NYC, Boston & Los Angeles — much different than in the boondox of central PA or Kentucky
Perhaps. But perhaps not.
What about someone commuting to and from Lancaster to some boondock rural farm. He can pick up packages after work, and bring them to his neighbors. Perhaps be willing to do so, for far less than a professional UPS driver will.
Uber et al demonstrates that people choosing to work opportunistically, may be a much cheaper way to get some work done, than relying on full timers all the time. Some guy in the sticks is likely to know which farm road his various neighbors live down. Whereas UPS’ location database, while no doubt very good, may miss something.
But who knows how it will shake out. The important part is that everyone get to give it a go without restrictions. Whatever delivery mode wins out, wins out. And so does customers, and hence America and the world.
Some of you must have never heard of “too big to fail.” Amazon couldn’t possibly put UPS out of business, as UPS is essentially “too big to fail.” Amazon would literally have to dump all its other projects and focus solely on shipping and logistics to even come “close” to putting UPS out of business. UPS is a shipping “company”…that is all it does…Amazon is a retailer “first” before anything…They also have grocery stores, television services and now…”food delivery” on their plate…they don’t have the skill, fleet or ability to challenge any company, whose sole purpose…is to ship..
Futhermore, Amazon’s commercial and international shipping is essentially non existent next to UPS and Fed Ex. Second, they do not have the business accounts and contracts for retail and commercial delivery, the modes of transpo necessary to assume such, (ships, planes) nor the equipment to deliver oversized merchandise. (8×10 rugs, building materials etc.) Someone mentioned that they don’t even have the licensing to deliver certain merchandise and products that require government clearance and approval before such can be done…this is a fact, and a process that alone could take yeearrs!
TBH, Amazon “actually” “uses” UPS and sometimes Fed Ex to deliver some of their packages!…I know…I used to work for UPS and many moons ago. UPS has so many moving parts, and accounts across many, many countries. Where as Amazon …well, you know..lol
And, you better believe there is a “huge” difference in pay. I know UPS drivers who have retired from the company comfortably where as I know a few Amazon drivers, who use it as a way to make “a little extra on the side.” It is far from an income supplement. They may be stealthy in delivering groceries and small packages right now… but let’s have this same discussion around the holidays when manufacturers are dumping hay loads of ship container amounts of product on to ports for retailers in time for Christmas. And guess “who” is picking it up? Again Amazon couldn’t possibly put UPS out of business. They don’t even have the logistics to do so.
Amazon will not stop at packaging automation. In another 5-10 years, they will also automate the deliveries. 80% of its workforce today may be jobless in a decade.
I was wondering how Amazon would do this, and suspected independent contractors because hey, that’s the UBER model! Just use technology. They’ll work the bugs out. They won’t put anyone out of business directly, but they move enough product to justify their own shipping network. They can speed up their deliveries, and provide incentive to their employees to do so. Their are plenty of other online shopping sites to keep them all in business.
The real issue is consistency and maintaining standards. Good luck doing that in the residential delivery space while quickly building out the infrastructure to handle it. Turnover itself will be a nightmare, and if they don’t offer a generous enough pay/benefit structure they will spend far more chasing issues and losing customers to the next big thing. Amazon’s main problem is that they think their business model can work in any space. It can’t and it won’t. This isn’t a botched cell phone if they fail, it’s hundreds of billions of dollars. Ask DHL how easy it is to come to the United States and compete (they tried to about 16 years ago)… and that was a company that does that successfully in many places around the world. The union thing has been a red herring for others to write down the value and profit potential if UPS for a long time, but it’s obvious they have carved out a large segment of the market that requires and is willing to pay for a more consistent experience.
I’ve had the opportunity to tour 2 of the big automated hubs and was a loaned executive for one of the companies you mentioned and I have to tell you that you have over simplified this thesis statement to the umpteenth degree. This technology that everyone thinks is perfect and is a job killer spends more time broken down and jammed than it does running. In fact it’s been my first hand experience that it often requires more staffing to run than normal ops. Then there’s service, no matter what people sensationalize there is no replacing a person for quality control and making the right decision at the right time.
Although I can appreciate this kind of article to grab viewers and pay the rent, you can rest assured the big 3 shipping companies move so much of the GDP that if UPS, FEDEX, or the Post shut down tomorrow it would cause economic upheaval.
Also consider volume trends… Everyone is shipping now and Amazon is growing at the rate that is still astronomical. If Amazon were to choose to pick only UPS as their shipping partner tomorrow UPS would only be able to deliver Amazon packages. Same for FEDEX and the Post. Amazon needs to generate a last leg workforce just to meet delivery requirements.
” This technology that everyone thinks is perfect and is a job killer spends more time broken down and jammed than it does running.”
That’s the kind of problem functional businesses, who make their money off of operations, have to worry about. While those whose money comes 90-100+% from The Fed, via a gaggle of well connected welfare queens, in exchange for simple hype and theft by financialization, do not…
So, you end up with capital destruction on a scale never before seen. Dimbulbs throwing mountains of capital, meticulously built by their forefathers, then stolen by the Fed to hand to petty, mediocre sycophants, down the toilet; in ever more idiotic chase-the-latest-hype vanity displays.
Not saying packing a box more efficiently than a human is some sort of completely unsolvable problem. But attempting to do it before the technology and resources are truly there, is just folly. Not something anyone would do with their own money. Only with the money of others, stolen by The Fed and government, does anyone undertake such waste.
Mish, as a long time reader I appreciate your economic analysis but think you are off on the prediction that UPS is doomed. The union comment is spot on and is a huge challenge but the rest of the article is not correct. First, UPS does deliver on Saturday and has for the last two years and my guess is that Sunday delivery will be available at some point. In regards to packing automation, that is not UPS core business so not sure how that takes away from UPS business. Amazon has the cash to compete in the segment but they are still a long way off from building out their network.
I’m in CA and on the test program. I can tell you now once they roll this out people will switch. Rates are 50 to 75% cheaper than UPS and FedEx ground.
Amazon can’t even build out infrastructure fast enough to hurt UPS, FED-EX, or the USPS meaningfully in the next decade. Logistics is a lot more than package delivery.
Good luck keeping it running. We have an Italian made overhead cnc router that breaks down more than all of the others combined
UPS does deliveries on Saturday. UPS loads package trailers at 1000 packages per hour. They unload trailers at a lot higher than that. So all this technology is just a gimmick for share holders. UPS on the other hand has made the first delivery working drone on a campus. Now we are working on machines that are way better than Amazon’s measly 600 packages per hour. If Amazon had to pay taxes, they wouldn’t be here today.
….if they only had to pay taxes high enough, we could all be like North Korea!!!
The problem is: You have to pay taxes. It is not that Amazon “doesn’t” have to pay them.
I don’t understand this 1 day shipping infatuation that Amazon is so hyped on. There are very, very few items that I care whether they arrive in 1 day, 2 days, 3 days or 7 days.
As to Amazon workers taking out UPS, I think it may be the other way around. I hear the Teamsters are good at using baseball bats!
Same here. I either need something right now, or it can wait a few days.
You obviously don’t have kids that tell you they’re invited to a birthday party 2 days before the party.
OK, so that is the support for the 1 day delivery business model – sudden kid’s birthday party notice? [roflol]
The USA has more stores per person than any other country on earth. Tell me what do you think people did BEFORE Amazon if their ‘kid’ got invited to a birthday party with 2 days notice. And there are always prepaid visa gift cards
I live in the rat race. 1 day shipping or 2 day is awesome and definitely needed. 3 quick examples. 1) kid broke my coffee pot.. One day shipping yes please. Or wait a week no thanks, or go pay double at store today and waste an hour of time. No thanks.
2) my truck broke down. Specialized part and dealer wants 3 times amazon price and wants to charge expidited shipping. No thanks
3) going on holidays in few days need a few items, no time to go to store as work and getting everything caught up. Hit Amazon 2 day shipping on everything I needed…
And this is just the last week.
Yes I would not need 1 or 2 day shipping if I didn’t have to work so much and run my kids around all the time. But I don’t have time to go shop and I don’t have the luxury of knowing what I need.
You actually consistently still get things in 2 days from your order on Amazon?
Please tell me what that’s like because most people I know haven’t seen that kind of turn around from Amazon in at least 19 months.
I work for UPS and yes Amazon is semi competition to us, and that’s due to Amazon only delivers materialistic things like clothes, sodas, cameras etc. UPS and FedEx deliver that too but we also transport medical equipment, court documents, and also hazmats. Until Amazon gets a license to ship such items it’s still not that much of a competition
I’m pretty sure i’d rather hand off important items you mention to a UPS professional than some low paid punk. Of course, I live rural so i’m kinda picky for obvious reasons. Not a huge fan of fedex either but many places I buy from don’t have a option. I guess extended delivery times and broke stuff are worth it to them.
UPS and Amazon are after different market segments. Amazon is trying to cut costs for shipping to consumers. But at the same time they actually created the burden they are trying to solve. UPS has been more of a business to business shipper. The online boom didn’t suddenly put UPS on the map, Amazon is just racing to catch their own tail. If they fail it won’t really be a cosmic event for UPS. Which also means if they succeed it’s not that detrimental either. It costs more money to deliver consumer package, they would be glad to let Amazon handle that burden.
UPS’ concern may be more with Amazon sponsoring hundreds to thousands of new shipping upstarts, none of whom are saddled with union dues, pensions and other legacy costs. It used to be large scale coordination for a nationwide delivery service, required centralized control. But with lower cost communication, this MAY no longer be the case. Think Uber vs Yellow Cab.
Sounds like Whoever Wrote This Article Is Reaching!!! UPS Definitely Delivers Air And Ground Every Saturday💯 UPS And FedEx Have Been Around For A Very Long Time Due To Their Loyalty To The Customer Base That’s Existed For Decades..They’ve Both Been Resillant AF And Will Continue To Be…Let’s Get Those Facts Straight Before We Throw Legitimate Businesses Under The Train✔
You should really do 5 minutes worth of research. UPS does in fact deliver on Saturdays. But if you ship ground (because you don’t want to pay for next day air or Saturday delivery) then there is no guarantee on a delivery day.
I’ve never received packages from UPS on a weekend, no matter what method it was shipped, but I dont mind that at all. I’m not the type of girl that needs to have something NOW NOW NOW.
If it came down to it, I would pay more to support a union UPS vs amazing ANYDAY. Plus, to be honest, I buy off Amazon 2 times a year, because I will look to find items elsewhere at all cost, unless it’s really unavoidable. I’m not a big fan of Amazon
Still not sure how that automation will put ups or FedEx for that matter out of business…..so it packs merchandise, great. Unless you go to a ups store or a customer counter ups really doesn’t pack your stuff they pick up and deliver what you or your business has already packed and deliver ot for you. Yes Amazon has a much cheaper work force…no question and they aren’t going anywhere. But internet shopping is going nowhere but up and at the end of the day there is way to much business for any one company to deal with. And as far as ups is concerned I’ll always support a unionized work force over that smiling third world country pay structure any day.
When automation has ‘retired’ the human workforce who but the ultra elite will have any money to buy anything? There will be no customer base left for AMZN to sell anything to.
If most people don’t have as much money to buy things, then guess what prices will have to do?
The problem isn’t an economy that gets more efficient through technology. Rather, the problem occurs when the government steps in, arbitrarily defining a “poor” class, subsidizing them, thus keeping market prices artificially inflated. Those not poor enough to qualify for the subsidy get disproportionately screwed since the purchasing power of their dollars has been reduced. This group is the “ever shrinking middle class”.
Markets will sort themselves out. Just let them!
When markets are left to “sort themselves out” we end up with child labor.
There is a middle ground.
I personally can’t imagine why I would want to send my kids into a coalmine. If that is how you would use your freedom, the problem is likely to be with you, not freedom.
Parents care about their children. Politicians care about enslaving others for the benefit of themselves and their children. Not yours.
When you see a problem anywhere in the world, is never stems from people being too free to do something about it themselves. The solution is never to get on your knees and beg massa to use more lube on your children. But rather to simply get rid of massa altogether, and live lube free.
Getting rid of massa sounds a lot like cleaving off the top of the hierarchy. We’ve seen that experiment in play a few times this past century. It sounds good until you try to implement it, and then killing anyone that disagrees with the plan is much easier.
It ends in starvation and genocide because “massa”, as you put it, understands (or at least maintains) the infrastructure that the vast majority of people take for granted.
What we’ve seen fail, is replacing massa with another one. Definitionally so in the cases you refer to, as you once again have someone “implementing” and deciding on a “plan.” Instead of free people making their own plans.
Noone maintains infrastructure for anyone else. Certainly noone in power does, as anyone who wastes resources on maintaining infrastructure for others, lose out in power struggles against those who instead focus all energy and resources on the power struggle itself. Sad and disillusioned as this may make well indoctrinated sycophants feel, Caudillo doesn’t really care about them. He just pretends to, by “generously” handing over a few bucks to some widow in televised grandstandings; after having killed and robbed her once-was husband of about a thousand times what she got. That’s all anyone will ever get from any Dear Leader.
We end up with child labor when our politicians decide its cool to have trading partners who turn a blind eye at the practice in their own countries. Sure, let’s select trading partners who have the same labor laws as ourselves, so that our domestic manufacturers can (finally) compete on a level playing field for the first time in 3 generations! However, there is NO middle ground when it comes to properly “discovering the price” of a good or service and that is (and should be!) the collective opinion of every market participant who votes from their own unadulterated pocket book.
Our politicians continually fail on both accounts.
Packing boxes for Amazon wasn’t even a job a decade or so ago….. Yet the world somehow survived…
As@Runner Dan says, just stay out of it to ensure efficiency is not compromised, and the increased wealth stemming from increased efficiency, will generate real demand for new goods and services that require labor.
The problem is never free people finding more efficient ways to harvest crops. It is always the deadweight leeches that those who work are forced to support.
Ever growing debt and tax spending means inflation is a must if the politicians want to keep their heads attached.
Freedom is the highest political goal. Not concerning oneself about whether slimy politicians’ heads stay attached or not.
People on welfare buy a lot of stuff. I frequently see them at the grocery store at 10 AM on workdays with their EBT cards.
There is confusion for me here. We should pick and choose our trade partners (i.e. select market participants), but we should allow price discovery to happen with all market participants.
I see that we can agree that some government involvement is necessary.
“We should pick and choose our trade partners”
Yes, WE should. Every one of us. Individually, as free individuals. It’s one of those pesky, basic freedoms again…..
OK, OK, l hear you, let’s replace a complicated and efficient infrastructure that has effectively competed against its temporal competitors with a bunch of people worth “freedom”.
Your pack of free people making their own plans will be immediately devastated by any neighboring society that has any organization at all. Good luck with that.