Business

Your Amazon packages could soon be delivered by a coffee shop

Amazon is partnering with thousands of small businesses to deliver its packages locally by the end of the year.

Driving the news: Amazon will start recruiting existing small businesses in 23 states and focus on rural areas, and large dense cities, like Seattle, New York, Boston, and Los Angeles.

• The company aims to partner with a variety of businesses including coffee shops, florists, bodegas, and clothing stores and said the shops don’t need delivery experience to make the partnership work.

Why it matters: The program, named Amazon Hub Delivery, is the e-commerce giant’s latest effort to strengthen their “last mile” network - the last stage in logistics where packages are delivered to customers - through outside work forces.

How it works: Companies must deliver 30 packages a day including weekends, but excluding major holidays.

• Drivers from Amazon Delivery Service partner network will drop off packages to the small businesses that must have secure storage to hold the boxes before delivery.

• If companies deliver the minimum 30 packages a day, they can expect to earn around $27,000 a year, or $2.50 a package.

Big picture: Amazon noted that Hub can help small business tap into new revenue streams, however what they end up making will largely depend on their location and the number of business that sign up.

• Amazon says it wants to partner with 2,500 small business drivers by the end of 2023.

• Two businesses that took part in a pilot program in Alabama said that the extra income generated from the partnership helped them upgrade their existing business. (Via Amazon Hub website)

Looking ahead: Amazon has been criticized often for treating its logistics employees “like robots” and time will tell whether small businesses benefit from the partnership.

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