Amazon

Amazon.com Inc today said it is opening a supermarket in Los Angeles with high-tech shopping carts that let customers skip checkout lines, as the e-commerce giant builds out its offline presence.

Amazon.com Inc has agreed to pay over $1 billion to buy self-driving startup Zoox Inc, a move that will expand the e-commerce giant's reach in autonomous-vehicle transportation technology.

Bentonville, Ark.-based retail behemoth Walmart and Ottawa-based Shopify, a multi-channel commerce platform, announced a new partnership today, in which they will launch a channel that will enable Shopify merchants to sell their products through Walmart.com, with the goal to add 1,200 Shopify sellers in 2020.

Nothing has been predictable or consistent in the parcel shipping industry in 2020. The onset of COVID-19 decimated shipping volumes in March and the beginning of April, as businesses sent employees home and shuttered facilities. However, parcel volumes have raged higher and higher ever since, with both FedEx and UPS reporting daily volumes at and exceeding “peak” holiday volumes.

Seattle-based global e-commerce giant Amazon announced late yesterday it is leasing 12 Boeing 767-300 converted cargo aircraft from Air Transport Services Group as part of an initiative to meet changing customer needs through the investment in ways to provide fast and free delivery.

Atlanta-based global transportation and logistics bellwether UPS announced this week that it plans to implement COVID-19-related Peak Surcharges. A UPS customer notice stated that these new surcharges will take effect on May 31, 2020.

Amazon.com’s Prime Air fleet will grow to about 200 planes, up from 42 now, in the next seven or eight years, creating an air cargo service that could rival United Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp., according to a recent study.

This briefing offers an overview of Amazon Air, providing insights on its size, scope, and evolving logistics role, it draws upon data from four primary informational sources to illustrate its economic and geographic orientation.

FedEx Corp. and Microsoft Corp. are teaming up to provide commercial shipping customers with early warnings of delays from weather, traffic, and other mishaps, giving the courier and the software maker another weapon as each competes with Amazon.

The ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is changing the playbook, in some ways, for how global transportation and logistics bellwether FedEx is approaching capacity and management for its SmartPost offering, its last mile delivery service partnership with the United States Postal Service (USPS).

The United States Postal Service (USPS) announced that it has named Louis DeJoy as its 75th Postmaster General and CEO. DeJoy will be replacing Megan Brennan, whom has been serving in the position since 2015, and will take over on June 15. The incoming USPS chief will be the fifth Postmaster General to come over from the private sector, going back to when the USPS, in 1971, became an independent establishment within the Executive Branch.

Trevor Outman, Founder and CEO of San Diego-based parcel consultancy Shipware LLC, told LM that as Amazon continues to invest in their own delivery network, they found a way to develop and monetize pockets of excess capacity, adding that Amazon Shipping was designed to capitalize on these pockets of excess capacity and deliver non-amazon platform orders.

Citing a source, the report said that this program, which is only currently available in only a few United States markets, is being suspended, due to Amazon needing “people and capacity to handle a surge in its own customers’ orders,” adding that Amazon plans to bring on 100,000 warehouse workers and is intent on “shipping essential items during the coronavirus outbreak.”

The Teamsters and several other major labor unions are asking the Federal Trade Commission to open a far-reaching study into Amazon’s business practices. Simply put, the unions are asking the federal government whether its size is resulting in antitrust violations in various shipping and transportation industries.

Amazon says it will be temporarily prioritizing products coming into their fulfillment centers during the coronavirus crisis with independent merchants unable to ship products other than medical supplies and household items until April 5, 2020.