Amazon bereitet radikalen Wandel in der Paketzustellung vor

As in the USA, the group will soon be using its own transport aircraft in Europe. The big goal is to deliver every second package ordered online. The ambitious plans primarily put a German company in trouble.
No later than next year, more than four billion parcels will be delivered in Germany. If the growth rates continue as before, the parcel drivers from DHL, DPD or Hermes together will deliver more than 13 million consignments to the front door or another agreed location every day.

The reason for this is the increasing demand from online retailers. But it is also these dealers themselves who keep the mountains of parcels growing. Amazon, for example, has taken so-called Prime customers an inhibition threshold for small orders: From now on, they no longer have to comply with the minimum order value of 20 euros when purchasing more inexpensive and labeled Plus products, so that no shipping costs are charged for this delivery either. The toothbrush, the pot cleaner or the adhesive tape then come to the customer postage free.

The fact that more and more packages mean ever higher burdens for the environment and inner cities does not seem to be a criterion for such sales measures. Rather, the online department store Amazon does everything it can to expand its own logistics capacities in such a way that completely different package quantities can be processed in the end.

Amazon is already the world's fourth largest transport company when it comes to its own aircraft fleet. Only the Post subsidiary DHL and United Parcel Service as well as Federal Express from the USA have even more cargo aircraft.
The airline Amazon Air, which was founded just four years ago, started with ten planes, and 50 transport aircraft are now on the road for the company. Next year there should be 70 units. In the United States, the Amazon line already connects 25 major cities.

The dimensions are large. When the $ 1.5 billion cargo hub at Cincinnati, Ohio, is completed, up to 100 Amazon aircraft will be able to handle up to 100 Amazon aircraft.

Freight transportation by Amazon Air is a third cheaper
Where the journey is going is clear: "If the delivery rate of own parcels was around ten percent at the beginning of 2017, Amazon is currently delivering every second parcel in the USA itself," writes Elena Sternberg in a comprehensive study. She is an industry expert at KfW Ipex-Bank, a subsidiary of the German and state-owned KfW banking group.

In addition to speed, lower costs are the arguments for Amazon to take over and organize the transport with their own resources. According to the study, freight transportation by Amazon Air is almost a third cheaper than using and renting foreign planes and sorting.

Amazon spent nearly $ 28 billion on shipping costs in 2018. Thanks to the expansion of the aircraft fleet, however, these expenses rose less than in the previous year. The ship could come after the plane: Even own container ships for the transport from Asia to North America are under discussion at Amazon.
The largest online retailer in terms of sales, just like in the United States, is aiming for a delivery rate of 50 percent in Germany in the long term. The company does not give figures on how high its own delivery share is currently in the second most important foreign market for Amazon worldwide.

The steps there are literally visible on every corner: Amazon Locker, their own parcel boxes, are being created at more and more petrol stations or in parking lots in front of supermarkets.

The fleet of vehicles that carry the Amazon logo and bring packages home is growing steadily. Most recently, the company even ordered 40 electric delivery vans from the Streetscooter subsidiary. Now it is the turn of the shops: Amazon counters, which are parcel delivery and acceptance points, are soon to be added to German retailers.

Amazon requires employees to exceed customer expectations
Around 20,000 employees already work for Amazon in Germany. At 28 locations nationwide, parcels are put together in logistics, sorting and distribution centers and sent from there to the customer. In contrast to some parcel services, Amazon sets its own requirements: When organizing and implementing parcel delivery, it is important to meet or exceed customer expectations.

The parcel market will change significantly as Amazon delivers more and more items itself. "Amazon knows the customer behavior and knows which product the customer is buying and where he would like it to be delivered to," says Horst Manner-Romberg, owner of the logistics consultancy MRU.
With this knowledge and data alone, the logistics behind the online department store can be set up and controlled much more efficiently than is possible for a pure transport company. "This in turn means that Amazon's package recipients are perceived as more reliable than some other deliverers," says Manner-Romberg.

The industry leader in parcel shipping in Germany, DHL, gets stuck due to all the activities of the online retailer: on the one hand, Amazon is one of the Bonn Group's most important large customers, and on the other hand, the company is becoming a more threatening competitor month after month by expanding its own transport.
This development is particularly clear at the freight airports in Cologne / Bonn and Leipzig / Halle. Amazon is developing transport hubs in both North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony. For the logistics expert Sternberg, the signs are clear that Amazon "will expand intra-European flight networks as a reliable and fast alternative in parallel to ground transportation". "It is only a matter of time when and in what form Amazon Air comes to Europe," she says.

Amazon is causing a disruption in logistics
It is not without a certain irony: In the financial information on the current quarterly figures, Amazon points out under “Risks” that the development of the logistics markets can influence the business data of the online retailer. It is Amazon itself that is responsible for disruption and a radical change in logistics.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has announced that the company will continue to invest in faster delivery routes in order to earn "solid and safe" money in the future. Because that is not yet the case everywhere.