This is an interesting problem.<p>If FedEx's platform can't promise 1 or 2-day delivery, it will never take off.<p>On the other end of the spectrum, Amazon promises 1-2 day delivery but has been falling through more often than first seen and can become a 2-4 day delivery. Amazon does seem to absolutely bleed their workforce to keep up, but also push more absolute junk through their platform now.<p>Costco is in kind of a prime position to offer quality-tested products with 1-2 day delivery... but they just do not care to offer this "Prime" type of service. Costco is still quick, just not as quick, and their website / app is trash to use compared to Amazon.<p>One honest competitor I see rising up - Home Depot. They are making incredible moves in this space (in terms of web/app UI/UX and expedited deliverable date).
I was am Amazon seller and absolutely hated it.<p>It is seemingly all run by bots. They delisted my product and none of the humans knew why. It is a bot that decided that and no one could answer what the reason was.<p>I welcome any competition that is more friendly to sellers.
Amazon FBA takes a big percentage, abuses sellers/brands, and significantly limits business models (e.g. international sucks) There is a market here. I hope they pull it off.
Only if they do their current business well others can create effective competition for Amazon. It took me 3+ hours to just get a label from their website for a special hardware I had to ship. Fun part is that after I signup and create and account and login, they want me to "Create an account", which I suppose it is their internal terminology for some kind of payment profile. Then they did not allow me to create that either demanding I call up their customer service.
If y'all are struggling to find good customer service from an online storefront, please allow me to recommend Office Depot / Office Max.<p>I have found that they've got a great selection of electronics, kitchen supplies, and of course office goods, and they are not a marketplace: they do not permit 3rd-party sellers. They have house brands and name brands, and they sell all through their own stores and warehouses.<p>The shopping experience both online and in-person is a breeze. Their logistics are great; when I went shopping for my Christmas gifts in the evening of 12/25, I scored free next-day delivery. I picked up a cable modem, some plasticware, and an executive office chair. They were all delivered via Uber next-day to my doorstep. Some originated from my local store, and some from across town.<p>As a bonus, their CopyMAX location allows me to securely shred documents for a song. They contract that out with Iron Mountain. I've got a membership; I earn points and valuable coupons every time I shop. It's basically worry-free, and the staff at my store is friendly, and they seem to be respected and supported by management, even though the storefront is a veritable ghost town by now.<p>I've been able to avoid any entanglements with Newegg and Target and Best Buy, where I've had some bad experiences. Office Depot/MAX is my go-to, first choice now for just about anything.
I've known a fair amount of people that have worked at FedEx corporate, poached talent from there, etc. I sincerely don't think they are going to turn the ship with the technical culture they have in place. It's abysmal, dysfunctional, and weighed down with so much red tape. Many engineers are just a cog in some large machine. Communication seems absolutely draconian.<p>Perhaps this is most companies that age and size but I simply would bet against any of their new technical endeavors without radical change in their organizational structures. I'd love to be proven wrong though. Healthy competition is a good thing.
This is interesting. Putting aside AWS, Amazon has for a long time been a logistics company at it's core - the website is terrible from a customer perspective, pricing isn't great and the seller/supplier experience is certainly weighted in Amazon's favour. What they have is the critical mass of customers who are invested in prime and it's the default choice. I hate them but if I need something quick I generally hold my nose and ask my wife to order on her account. Other sellers can achieve delivery just as quick, it's just inconsistent between sites.<p>As someone who builds ecommerce sites and has seen Amazon become dominant I've thought about how to solve this problem many times - it requires deep pockets and most importantly good logistics. I've often thought if a logistics company expanded their shopping cart plugins to also (optionally) feed back data to a central ordering system and included their own payment solution to allow direct from customer ordering with centralised ordering, payment and logistics - perhaps at a loss until a prime type offering could be built there would be a potential for a strong business. Amazon take a huge amount of fees a chunk of which go to putting the wrong product in front of the customer!
Beautiful... except they can't even compete with Amazon on shipping (literally had to have 3 things re-delivered just in the last 2 weeks). I would focus on their current business first.
Funny how the article talks about Amazon using contractors - at least around here FedEx ground looks very similar staffing side - but article didn’t mention that
I’m glad it’s a “platform,” because FedEx appears institutionally incapable of making a usable website or mobile app. But maybe they can pull off a “platform.” :)
Am I going schizophrenic, or are the last two paragraphs the same? Is the verge writing articles with AI now?<p>Sounds cool though. Good luck to FedEx.
I feel like folks are hyper focused on the delivery side. That just seems super important to me. Just me, but there's like 2-3 times a year I want something fast. I bounce on and off Prime because it just doesn't matter to me.<p>The real problems seem much deeper to me. Amazon's warehouses, their online store, their ability to handle disputes: that much deeper integration feels like the challenge FedEx faces.
I'm confused by this. Amazon's not an "e-commerce platform"; it's a store that's half Walmart and half flea-market. Shopify is an "e-commerce platform" to me. Which of these is FedEx intending to be?
FedEx can't get a package delivered on time... I have a really hard time seeing how a technologically outdated legacy corporation could compete with Amazon fulfillment and other 3PLs...
My personal experience with FedEx is they can't even match UPS for last mile delivery. How do they expect to compete with Amazon (and by extension Walmart) on e-commerce?
Do you figure it's easier to become a shipping company or an ecommerce platform? I don't suspect they'll pull it off, but it's not the worst idea I've heard.<p>Walmart always makes me think similar but not in the same way. Ultimately, the in-person retail experience still offers its own conveniences so that's a good feature.
As a resident of a major metropolitan area, FedEx shipping is the worst of the providers (including DHL and Lazership). They regularly claim to attempt a delivery but don't even come to my home, nor do they deliver to my front (as called out in my delivery instructions), but instead leave packages by my garbage bins.<p>tl;dr: good luck.
FedEx is a terrible delivery service. I refuse to use them. Maybe before attempting to rival Amazon, they should focus on improving their core operations first.
Is FedEx going to allow ecom customers to access the same same-day blisteringly fast Amazon drivers or are we stuck with their garbage delivery network?
> enabling merchants to give estimated delivery dates to customers during shopping and ordering<p>It’ll be a new era when FedEx can give accurate delivery estimates. Last time I recall paying for next day delivery and wondering how my package will traverse all of Canada in that time. I then watched the delivery estimate update to “tomorrow” every day for a week until it finally delivered.
I can't remember the last time FedEx actually correctly delivered a package to either my house, or my place of business. They have left expensive switches in the middle of parking lots at wrong buildings in the rain and marked it as delivered. Whenever I see that a company is using FedEx to deliver something to me, I lose all hope that it will actually arrive at the correct address, let alone arriving on time.
I'm sure it'll be no problem to compete with Amazon warehouses, gargantuan stockpiles of product strategically placed across the country (and increasingly, the world) for rapid fulfillment.