Re:FedEx's new service takes aim at Amazon
by mabbo on Tuesday February 07, 2017 @06:11PM
(#13593887)
They're missing the entire advantage Amazon has in the situation: n items, one box.
When you buy three items from Amazon, they have the opportunity to put both items into a single box and have a much smaller last-mile cost[0]. With this FedEx program, each item will have its own box and maintain the per-item last-mile costs. Last Mile is the largest fraction of an e-commerce retailers costs after actual products.
It's a neat program, but Amazon still has a cost advantage.
[0] (Now, they don't always do that, but that's usually in order to make sure the items get to the customer on time, or maybe they're coming from very distant different warehouses)
When you buy three items from Amazon, they have the opportunity to put both items into a single box and have a much smaller last-mile cost[0]. With this FedEx program, each item will have its own box and maintain the per-item last-mile costs. Last Mile is the largest fraction of an e-commerce retailers costs after actual products.
It's a neat program, but Amazon still has a cost advantage.
[0] (Now, they don't always do that, but that's usually in order to make sure the items get to the customer on time, or maybe they're coming from very distant different warehouses)