E<\/span>-commerce<\/strong> giant Amazon appears to be gaining ground in many aspects, between boosting net sales and continuously increasing its network of fulfillment centers, expanding into air transport, and even buying Whole Foods earlier this year, making it interesting to see just what the company will do next.<\/span><\/p>\n

Amazon appears to always be one step ahead of the game,\u00a0and just last week, it unveiled a new service, dubbed\u00a0Amazon Key<\/a>, which will enable in-home delivery for Prime members at no extra cost. The service will allow customers to have their packages delivered inside their home without having to be there. Amazon Key will be available Nov. 8 in 37 cities across the United States, and the company plans to roll out more locations over time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Back in 2016, Amazon entered into agreements with two airlines – Atlas Air and Air Transport Service Group – to lease 40 dedicated cargo airplanes, and just this January, the company revealed its plans to build\u00a0a new air cargo hub at the Cincinnati\/Northern Kentucky Airport (CVG)<\/a>\u00a0in Hebron, Ky. to support its dedicated fleet of Prime Air cargo planes.<\/span><\/p>\n

A spokesperson for CVG told\u00a0American Shipper\u00a0<\/em>on Friday officials at the airport are still unsure when Amazon would break ground\u00a0on that air cargo hub.<\/span><\/p>\n

Airfreight demand <\/span>growth, in general, has been outpacing capacity growth throughout 2017, and with Amazon\u2019s growth in net sales, it is likely Amazon is in need of its own dedicated fleet to support shipments for its customers.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the third quarter of 2017, Amazon\u2019s net sales soared 33.7 percent year-over-year to $43.7 billion, while net income inched up 1.6 percent to $256 million, the company reported.<\/span><\/p>\n

Amazon had 541,900 employees (full-time and part-time) during the quarter, up from 306,800 employees in the third quarter of last year.<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, the company expects to create more than 120,000 seasonal jobs in its U.S. network of fulfillment centers, sortation <\/span>centers and customer service\u00a0sites.<\/span><\/p>\n

Between Amazon\u2019s rapid growth and unpredictability, it is definitely a looming concern as to whether it will be a threat to third-party logistics companies (3PLs) in the future, and if so, when and to what extent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Frank Guenzerodt, President & CEO of Dachser USA Air & Sea Logistics Inc. said during the 3PL Value Creation Chicago Summit last week that in the short- to medium-term, he does not expect Amazon to be a threat to 3PLs, but in the long-term, in 10-15 years, he believes Amazon will begin to take market share from its own service providers.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I don’t believe that Amazon will become a serious competitor for ocean container moves in the short- to mid-term. International ocean transportation still has many regulations which can not easily be automated,” he said. “In some <\/span>countries, it still involves ‘paper’ processes. International shippers are also seeking more value than just pure point to point transportation. However, in the <\/span>long-term, they could take some market share.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Chris O\u2019Brien, chief commercial officer at C.H. Robinson Worldwide, said at the summit that he does not view Amazon as a competitor today, but that it is probably uncertain going forward. O\u2019Brien said if he had to guess where Amazon would go next, it would be value-added warehousing and fulfillment for <\/span>others but noted that in typical fashion, Amazon really hasn’t said a word about such plans.<\/span><\/p>\n

Richard Piontek, chairman of <\/span>eCapital and president of Capital Partners Services, said during the summit he thinks that on the fulfillment and distribution side, Amazon is definitely a competitor for 3PLs, considering how large the company\u2019s fulfillment center network is. He said that on the transportation side, he does not yet have an opinion on Amazon as a direct threat to 3PLs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Piontek said he believes the largest threat Amazon poses is that the company thinks completely differently than a lot of businesses and 3PLs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Follow us on Twitter for more Logistics News<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey focus solely on the customer and improving service and responsiveness, and level of ease of use and the whole experience, so they look at things differently than an operator, 3PL or warehouse-based distribution company,\u201d Piontek said. \u201cThey operate strictly in the mind of \u2018what\u2019s going to make this the most <\/span>customer-friendly easiest to do business with <\/span>solution,\u2019 so I think they actually challenge the 3PL business to be better.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Between Amazon\u2019s rapid growth and unpredictability, third-party logistics providers say it is definitely a looming concern as to whether the e-commerce giant will be a threat to their business in the future. E-commerce giant Amazon appears to be gaining ground in many aspects, between boosting net sales and continuously increasing its network of fulfillment centers,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5830,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[95,61,47],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5828"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5829,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5828\/revisions\/5829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}