UPS to become the Sears & Robuck Of shipping??

[Overpaid Union Thug]

First it was the post office that was going to put us out of business, then DHL ground, then Fed Ex ground, now Amazon. We aren’t even in the same business as Amazon. We don’t have warehouses full of Chinese crap to sell. We just deliver stuff. If one day everything in the world is sold by Amazon then yes we will be out of a job. Until then just show up and collect your paycheck until they tell you that you don’t have a job anymore.

There are a couple of issues here. One is that too much of the market share in e-commerce is coming out of those Amazon warehouses and fulfillment centers. Most of the big shippers sell on Amazon as well. If they weren’t delivering their own stuff now it wouldn’t affect us. But since they are, and more and more of it every year, that’s resulting in less volume for us. That’s less jobs and pension contributions for us.

Another is that they are paying their contractors (DSPs) substantially less (compared to UPS) to operate the delivery side themselves. The savings, along with their biggest cash cow Amazon Web Services, allows them to keep building more infrastructure.

They may deliver all of their stuff soon or just most of it. And it matters because, like I said, they are grabbing more and more of the market share. While our CEO and stock holders are content with shrinking but while shipping higher margin accounts. It’sa good strategy but, again, could hurt our pensions in the long run.

Many “experts” predict an even bigger increase in e-commerce in the next five years or so. Maybe that’ll send more volume back our way if Amazon can’t keep up with the growth? Or maybe they’ll finally get broken up by the government. But I doubt that.