Now if you’re wondering when this obsession with airplanes began, we have to rewind a bit to one fine morning in 2014. It was just before Christmas and Amazon had a deal of the day in place. It was for the Amazon Kindle. Amazon had made a promise to deliver the e-reader just in time for the holiday. But there was a glitch. Amazon found that there weren’t enough Kindles in the Seattle area. There weren’t enough Kindles even within driving distance that they could get to Seattle in their trucks. It had to quickly fly the Kindles in from other warehouses.
So it checked with its cargo partner UPS if they could spare some planes. UPS said no. It had enough on its plate and couldn’t appease Amazon during the busy holiday season.
Amazon executives freaked out. They couldn’t break their promise to customers. Especially on Christmas day. Calls were made, everyone scrambled, and somehow, Amazon managed to charter enough planes. The Kindles made it on time to Seattle. It was a Christmas miracle. (View Highlight)
Note: In 2014, Amazon faced an issue with delivering Kindles in time for Christmas as there were not enough in the Seattle area. When they asked their cargo partner UPS for help, they were turned down. Despite this, Amazon managed to charter enough planes to get the Kindles to Seattle, allowing them to fulfill their promise to customers.
Why did Amazon start its own air service?
Amazon’s logistics business could be similar. It bought and leased trucks, planes, and ships to meet its own need for speed. It has sunk the dollars and has proven how efficiently it can deliver the goods in the span of 1 or 2 days.
The next logical step is to sell this infrastructure as a service to everyone else. Get D2C companies to ditch the Blue Darts, DHLs, and Delhiverys of the world and piggyback on Amazon’s fleet. (View Highlight)
In 2022, Amazon decided that Prime membership in the US was so cool that every seller deserved it. If you’re someone who sells protein bars and folks come to your website to place an order, Amazon would allow you to place the Prime stamp at checkout. The Prime logo has a certain amount of trust built in. People know and recognise it. They know that deliveries will be quick. They want an Amazon-like delivery experience. So the merchant could simply use Amazon’s delivery services to sell products on their websites too. They called it ‘Buy with Prime.’ (View Highlight)
