Amazon plans to launch air freight service for Chinese sellers
By
Laura Stevens and
Erica E. Phillips
Published: Mar 15, 2017 8:08 a.m. ET
WSJ.com
Amazon.com Inc. has developed a business to handle shipments for its sellers by land and by sea—and soon by air.
The Seattle-based retail giant is planning to offer its sellers in China the ability to fly their goods internationally as air cargo, according to an Amazon Logistics site.
The move is an expansion of Amazon’s
AMZN, +0.05% growing business as a global freight forwarder and third-party logistics company, putting it more directly in competition with companies like United Parcel Service Inc.
UPS, +0.85% and Deutsche Post AG’s
DPW, +0.52% DHL. In recent months, Amazon began handling the shipment of goods by ocean to its U.S. warehouses from Chinese merchants selling on its site, taking on a role it had previously left to global freight-transportation companies.
Amazon’s entry into the market is “a huge wake-up call to an industry that’s been very slow to adopt technology,” said Ryan Petersen, chief executive of Flexport Inc., a San Francisco-based startup freight-forwarder that uses software to scrub inefficiencies from the process of arranging international cargo shipments for small- and midsize companies.
Many traditional freight forwarders still conduct their business via phone, email or even fax machine, but Amazon’s entrance into the sector could drive shippers away from that method in favor of a user-friendly technology platform. Petersen said at least one of his firm’s customers has used Amazon’s service—now a direct competitor to Flexport’s technology—to arrange an ocean freight shipment.