A company-controlled private fleet reportedly will serve the 40 largest population centers, with the balance handled by regional parcel carriers and the U.S. Postal Service.
Amazon.com. Inc. is moving quickly to revamp its delivery network to gain more control over its fulfillment infrastructure while reining in spiraling transportation costs, according to a supply chain consultant with close ties to the e-commerce giant.
James Tompkins, head of Tompkins International, a Raleigh, N.C.-based consultancy, said Amazon has divided the nation into three segments based on population size: The top 40 markets, which comprise about half of the U.S. population; the next 60 largest population areas, which account for about 17 percent; and the remaining areas, which account for about one-third of the U.S. population.
The top 40 markets will be served by a private fleet being built by Amazon to support an expansion of its online grocery business, called "Amazon Fresh," according to Tompkins. The next 60 will be served by an array of regional parcel delivery carriers, he said. The remainder will be served mostly by the U.S. Postal Service, he said.
UPS Inc., which today handles much of Seattle-based Amazon's current deliveries, will not play a prominent role in the network realignment, Tompkins said. Nor will FedEx Corp., which manages a lesser portion of Amazon's delivery business. An Amazon spokeswoman was unavailable to comment.
Orders will be routed through Amazon's 55 fulfillment centers, with deliveries made the same day, the next day or, at most, in two days, Tompkins said. Inventory will be positioned to exclusively support local deliveries. A national delivery network as operated by providers like FedEx and UPS will be rendered irrelevant because they will be considered too slow to suit the typical Amazon customer, he said.
Amazon two years ago seriously considered a bid for FedEx as a means of buying into an existing delivery operation, according to Tompkins. However, Jeffrey P. Bezos, Amazon's founder and CEO, backed away after determining FedEx's network structure was too national in scope to fit Amazon's strategy of local fulfillment and delivery, Tompkins said. A FedEx spokesman declined comment.
Tompkins has worked in the supply chain management field for decades and is considered one of the nation's leading authorities on its role in e-commerce. His relationship with Amazon is not clearly defined, a status seemingly more by design than coincidence. When asked to describe the nature of his involvement with Amazon, Tompkins replied that he was contractually obligated not to comment.
A "fresh" expansion
Though Amazon Fresh has been operating for five years, it is today only available in Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. However, Amazon plans to expand the grocery business to between 30 and 40 U.S. markets in 2014, according to Tompkins.
The private fleet network will commingle groceries with general merchandise, thus building the scale needed to make ground shipping cost-effective and to offer a compelling value to customers, Tompkins said. It would also set in motion a chain of events that would result in Amazon competing with FedEx and UPS.
The online grocery business, which is plagued with high fulfillment costs, is not considered a particularly attractive enterprise on its own. However, Bezos has used Amazon Fresh as a proving ground to test a more ambitious delivery model rather than as a way to build a national grocery footprint, according to Tompkins. By using the company's own vehicles to deliver groceries, Bezos has been able to fine-tune his own delivery network and understand the pros and cons of leveraging his own infrastructure rather than those of the incumbents, Tompkins said. Now Bezos is poised to apply that knowledge on a broader scale, he added.
Transportation costs remain a thorny issue for Amazon. Its shipping expenses in 2012, the most recent period that full-year figures were publicly available as of this writing, rose to more than US $5.1 billion, up from nearly $4 billion in 2011, according to the company's 10-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Shipping costs in 2012 exceeded shipping revenue by nearly $3 billion, according to the filing. Amazon generates much of its shipping revenue from third-party merchants who sell products through the company's site and use its fulfillment services for storing inventory, picking and packing, and shipping.
In the filing, Amazon said it expected its "net cost of shipping"—the ratio of shipping costs to revenue—to continue rising as parcel rates increase and more customers take advantage of the company's delivery offerings, including "Prime," which charges a $79 annual fee for unlimited two-day deliveries. Amazon has said it is considering a $40 annual price hike for Prime subscriptions.
Not everyone believes Amazon will migrate from FedEx and UPS so quickly. Scott Devitt, Internet analyst for investment firm Morgan Stanley & Co., said during a late February webcast that Amazon will continue to leverage the established delivery infrastructure and will not become a disruptive force in the delivery market. Amazon will continue to use its enormous buying power to extract favorable rates from its delivery partners and will see that as a more attractive alternative to building out its own network, Devitt said.
Frederick W. Smith, FedEx's founder, chairman, and CEO, told analysts recently that only FedEx and UPS have the delivery networks capable of efficiently handling the demands of Amazon and other e-commerce providers. Smith said his company, UPS, and the U.S. Postal Service would remain at the forefront of e-commerce shipping for the foreseeable future.
According to Tompkins, Amazon has been planning a new transportation strategy long before the well-publicized delivery problems that occurred during the 2013 holiday season, when about five million of its shipments were not delivered in time for Christmas. Much of the fallout was laid at the feet of UPS, though some have argued that Amazon erred by understating how many packages were coming UPS' way immediately prior to Christmas Day, thus overwhelming the Atlanta-based carrier's air network and triggering the backlog.
Amazon is still smarting from the fiasco, however. The company's fulfillment executives believe UPS and FedEx are not investing enough in equipment, infrastructure, and other resources to keep up with Amazon's growth, according to a person familiar with the matter.
These days, every move in the e-commerce space is significant because of its enormous potential. E-commerce has penetrated just 10 percent of the U.S. market, and between 6 and 7 percent of the global market, according to Morgan Stanley estimates. Based on projected annualized growth rates of 15 percent, e-commerce could be a $1 trillion worldwide business by 2016, according to the firm.
Ron Marotta of Yusen Logistics listens to Rick DiMaio of Ace Hardware talk about the steps Ace is taking to keep its store stocked after Hurricane Helene and during the East and Gulf Coast Port Strike.
The East and Gulf Coast port strike was the top discussion point during a panel discussion of shippers and logistics providers at the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) annual EDGE Conference this morning. The session, which was supposed to be focused on providing an update to CSCMP’s “2024 State of Logistics Report,” quickly shifted to addressing the effect that the strike by nearly 50,000 dockworker at 36 ports in the Eastern half of the U.S. could have on supply chains.
“The seriousness of this action cannot to be taken lightly,” said Ron Marotta, vice president of the freight forwarder and supply chain service provider Yusen Logistics (America). “It has not happened since 1977. Our lives depend on sustaining a smooth global supply chain.”
Marotta warned that for every day that the ports were not open, it would take four to five days to recover from the impact. One added concern is how the port closures would affect recovery efforts for Hurricane Helene. “There’s a huge amount of item that would normally be replenished by importers and retailers,” Marotta said.
Rick DiMaio, executive vice president and chief supply chain officer, for Ace Hardware Corp., commented that the hardware retail cooperative was doing okay for now keeping stores in stock, although he did expect the company would be “chasing generators for awhile.” “But in this recovery phase [from the hurricane], we certainly don’t need a strike right now,” he said.
The port closure will also have a knock-on effect on other transportation modes. For example, Andy Moses, senior vice president of sales and solutions for logistics services provider Penske Logistics, expects to see some companies turn to air freight as a result of the strike. This will, in turn, cause air freight capacity to tighten up and rates to rise. Furthermore, the longer the ports are closed, the more likely inflation is to rise again, according to Moses.
Nor will the effects of the strike stop at the U.S. border, according to Marotta. Many Caribbean Island nations depend on food import from the U.S. that move through East Coast ports. Additionally, some medical supplies typically are exported through the ports to Europe.
On a positive note, however, many companies took actions earlier in the year to prepare themselves for a potential strike. Ammie McAsey, senior vice president of customer distribution experience for the pharmaceutical distributor McKesson, said the pharmaceutical industry has brought in enough extra inventory that there will not be a short-term impact on the U.S. health care system due to the strike.
Government intervention?
Marotta hopes that the U.S. government takes the step of invoking the Taft-Hartley Act to stop the strike and send the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the port management group, United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) back to the negotiation table. In 2002, for example, President George W. Bush used the Taft-Hartley Act to end an 11-day lockout of union workers at West Coast ports. President Joe Biden, however, told reporters on Sunday that he would not do this.
“I hope that cooler heads prevail and that the executive branch realizes that it’s not just a labor issue, it’s also a humanitarian issue,” Marotta said.
Confronted with the closed ports, most companies can either route their imports to standard East Coast destinations and wait for the strike to clear, or else re-route those containers to West Coast sites, incurring a three week delay for extra sailing time plus another week required to truck those goods back east, Ron said in an interview at the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP)’s EDGE Conference in Nashville.
However, Uber Freight says its latest platform updates offer a series of mitigation options, including alternative routings, pre-booked allocation and volume during peak season, and providing daily visibility reports on shipments impacted by routings via U.S. east and gulf coast ports. And Ron said the company can also leverage its pool of some 2.3 million truck drivers who have downloaded its smartphone app, targeting them with freight hauling opportunities in the affected regions by pricing those loads “appropriately” through its surge-pricing model.
“If this [strike] continues a month, we will see severe disruptions,” Ron said. “So we can offer them alternatives. We say, if one door is closed, we can open another door? But even with that, there are no magic solutions.”
Turning around a failing warehouse operation demands a similar methodology to how emergency room doctors triage troubled patients at the hospital, a speaker said today in a session at the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP)’s EDGE Conference in Nashville.
There are many reasons that a warehouse might start to miss its targets, such as a sudden volume increase or a new IT system implementation gone wrong, said Adri McCaskill, general manager for iPlan’s Warehouse Management business unit. But whatever the cause, the basic rescue strategy is the same: “Just like medicine, you do triage,” she said. “The most life-threatening problem we try to solve first. And only then, once we’ve stopped the bleeding, we can move on.”
In McCaskill’s comparison, just as a doctor might have to break some ribs through energetic CPR to get a patient’s heart beating again, a failing warehouse might need to recover by “breaking some ribs” in a business sense, such as making management changes or stock write-downs.
Once the business has made some stopgap solutions to “stop the bleeding,” it can proceed to a disciplined recovery, she said. And to reach their final goal, managers can use the classic tools of people, process, and technology to improve what she called the three most important key performance indicators (KPIs): on time in full (OTIF), inventory accuracy, and staff turnover.
CSCMP EDGE attendees gathered Tuesday afternoon for an update and outlook on the truckload (TL) market, which is on the upswing following the longest down cycle in recorded history. Kevin Adamik of RXO (formerly Coyote Logistics), offered an overview of truckload market cycles, highlighting major trends from the recent freight recession and providing an update on where the TL cycle is now.
EDGE 2024, sponsored by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP), is taking place this week in Nashville.
Citing data from the Coyote Curve index (which measures year-over-year changes in spot market rates) and other sources, Adamik outlined the dynamics of the TL market. He explained that the last cycle—which lasted from about 2019 to 2024—was longer than the typical three to four-year market cycle, marked by volatile conditions spurred by the Covid-19 pandemic. That cycle is behind us now, he said, adding that the market has reached equilibrium and is headed toward an inflationary environment.
Adamik also told attendees that he expects the new TL cycle to be marked by far less volatility, with a return to more typical conditions. And he offered a slate of supply and demand trends to note as the industry moves into the new cycle.
Supply trends include:
Carrier operating authorities are declining;
Employment in the trucking industry is declining;
Private fleets have expanded, but the expansion has stopped;
Truckload orders are falling.
Demand trends include:
Consumer spending is stable, but is still more service-centric and less goods-intensive;
After a steep decline, imports are on the rise;
Freight volumes have been sluggish but are showing signs of life.
CSCMP EDGE runs through Wednesday, October 2, at Nashville’s Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Resort.
The relationship between shippers and third-party logistics services providers (3PLs) is at the core of successful supply chain management—so getting that relationship right is vital. A panel of industry experts from both sides of the aisle weighed in on what it takes to create strong 3PL/shipper partnerships on day two of the CSCMP EDGE conference, being held this week in Nashville.
Trust, empathy, and transparency ranked high on the list of key elements required for success in all aspects of the partnership, but there are some specifics for each step of the journey. The panel recommended a handful of actions that should take place early on, including:
Establish relationships.
For 3PLs, understand and get to the heart of the shipper’s data.
Also for 3PLs: Understand the shipper’s reason for outsourcing to a 3PL, along with the shipper’s ultimate goals.
Understand company cultures and be sure they align.
Nurture long-term relationships with good communication.
For shippers, be transparent so that the 3PL fully understands your business.
And there are also some “non-negotiables” when it comes to managing the relationship:
3PLs must demonstrate their commitment to engaging with the shipper’s personnel.
3PLs must also demonstrate their commitment to process discipline, continuous improvement, and innovation.
Shippers should ensure that they understand the 3PL’s demonstrated implementation capabilities—ask to visit established clients.
Trust—which takes longer to establish than both sides may expect.
EDGE 2024 is sponsored by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) and runs through Wednesday, October 2, at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville.