Amazon has been quietly gearing up to make a play in the “last-mile” delivery space. Previously, the e-commerce giant relied heavily on the United States Postal Service (USPS), United Parcel Service (UPS), and FedEx for delivery.  As their needs grow, Amazon has begun to test the waters as to what local delivery would mean for the company. So much so that they have recently announced that they will be hiring Amazon Delivery Service Partners (DSP) to meet their demands.

It was the break up heard all over the Supply Chain community. FedEx Express and Amazon have officially called it quits when it comes to U.S. domestic deliveries. The news was confirmed when FedEx decided not to renew their express shipping service contract with the e-commerce giant which is set to expire on June 30th. Amazon responded by diplomatically explaining to The Verge, ““We respect FedEx’s decision and thank them for their role serving Amazon customers over the years.” Express shipping tends to be the fastest way a package gets from point A to point B. Examples of express shipping includes same day, overnight, and next day shipping.

For decades, the logistics industry has been lagging behind in the adoption of technology in service provision. However, this has changed significantly over the past few years as a result of the increased adoption of various technologies most of which are aimed at increasing competitiveness and enhancing the provision of services.

When my husband and I lived in the city we were pretty lucky in that only a few of our packages ever got stolen from our front door steps. It helped that our front door had a little nook that drivers could discretely tuck our packages into, hiding them away from thieves (or porch pirates as they’re commonly referred to) in our neighborhood. My neighbors though weren’t so lucky as many of them saw their packages mysteriously disappear.