Amazon's "Seller Flex"

Amazon is looking to bolster its business by introducing their own shipping and delivery service allegedly to be called Seller Flex. Delivery is the final step of their online transaction business, and thus far they have been mostly reliant on external service providers such as FedEx and UPS.

While experimentation is successfully ongoing with drone delivery services, this is another step in taking their own service integration to another level by vertically integrating their logistics chain. It would cut out the middle man, and essentially reduce billions of dollars spent externally. By doing so they would assume full control in all of their operations and also be able to increase their customer relationship satisfaction if they can genuinely provide a better, cheaper and more efficient service.

Seller Flex is being piloted in India for over two years now and is about to be commissioned initially in the west coast of the US. The fact that it started in India however, suggests that Amazon may offer, or at least have considered the service in additional markets outside of North America. At the very least, the Caribbean and Central American markets may not be far off after fully implementing in the United States.

From a consumer's perspective, I'm definitely interested in seeing how things turn out. One of my concerns with the current delivery process is specifically with their 1-day delivery option, which in my experience, is more expensive, and has never been much quicker comparatively to the 2-day delivery option. If Amazon can deliver on that promise, this can be an extreme advantage in the event of “emergency” situations where expedited delivery is preferred. Also of note is the fact that these delivery options only really apply to the US. therefore if they do eventually expand their services globally, it would be very interesting to know how these options will be affected.

Current shipping companies may not be to fond of this development, but as a consumer, I'm certainly am. What are your thoughts? Do you use Amazon, and are you happy with the current delivery service, or would you prefer something improved? Do you think it can even backfire on Amazon? Leave a comment below.