Amazon Purchases Thousands Of Truck Trailers To Speed Up Holiday Deliveries

We're a mere 20 days away from the grandest gift-giving day of the year, and etailers everywhere are ready to embrace the glorious pain that's going to hit them as we inch ever-closer. There's no better example of an etailer having to withstand an incredible workload quite like Amazon. Its infrastructure has to be finely-tuned and efficient in order to not collapse, so on occasion, it makes changes that could help ease the overall load.

This year, it's not just a change being made, but a major one. For the first time, Amazon will be rolling out a fleet of "thousands" of its own trailers, complete with Amazon Prime branding on the side, that it will deploy all across the US. It's important to note that it's only the trailer Amazon will own, and not the truck itself. It will also not be responsible for hiring drivers. Instead, it will simply provide its trailers to preexisting trucking companies that can do the moving.

Going the route of having its own trailers will give Amazon better overall control of its shipping network, and optimize the amount of product it can ship in a given amount of time. This change could reduce the cut-off time customers need to make with their purchases, or simply get a package delivered quicker, especially as the stress begins to increase as the month progresses.

Amazon notes that this move doesn't affect its relationship with preexisting shipping companies like USPS, UPS, or FedEx. However, it does raise the question of whether it could in the future. If Amazon is controlling so much of the shipping process already, it doesn't seem to be outside the realm of reason to believe that it could eventually transition to having its own shipping company, only relying on third-parties for more remote deliveries.

Now that would be interesting to see.