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With Amazon creating its own network of delivery services around the country, you may think FedEx CEO Fred Smith would be worried, but according to him, he’s not. Smith thinks that rather than FedEx being hurt, the Postal Service is more likely to take a hit. Bloomberg reports:
FedEx Corp. Chief Executive Officer Fred Smith isn’t sweating Amazon.com Inc.’s move to expand its own delivery network, saying the e-commerce giant is likely to take more business from the post office than the package courier.
“Amazon is a good customer. We think they’ll be a bigger customer in years to come if they continue to grow and they certainly should,” Smith said in an interview Tuesday in Singapore, where he was attending the Bloomberg New Economy Forum. “The biggest single entity that will lose traffic as Amazon puts out its contractor delivery force is U.S. Postal Service.”
To gain more control over deliveries, Amazon this year began forming its own network by supplying vehicles, uniforms, technology and packages to third-party contractors it calls Delivery Service Partners. Most Amazon volume now is handled by the post office, FedEx and United Parcel Service Inc.
The bulk of the new program is for residential customers. Those are less profitable for couriers than businesses, which typically receive multiple packages for each delivery. The growth in online retailing has forced FedEx and UPS to invest more in automation to preserve profit margins. The Postal Service will raise prices for package deliveries between 5 percent and 10 percent starting in January.
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