Similarly (or more importantly, even) is they've now built out a proprietary fulfillment and last mile delivery infrastructure that runs parallel to USPS/UPS/etc.
Any new entrant is going to have to compete with Amazon on shipping cost/time. Yet Amazon can do it using their own distribution and sorting hubs, from which gig workers use their own cars to do the deliveries.
Based on my own experience with Amazon's own AMZL delivery service, it's a big advantage for their competitors who don't subject customers to this experience.
The only real positive side to this infrastructure are the Amazon Lockers that are paid for as part of the shipping service and actually at good locations most of the time. (While later movers like UPS and FedEx have stuck their lockers at SUPER ANNOYING locations).
It's really too bad the post office can't just setup something like this at the actual post-offices and be open for any carrier for a small fee. That'd solve a ton of last mile problems.
I don’t understand why Amazon hasn’t offered lockers to be installed at your home, for a fee. Maybe the cost would have to be too high, but there are savings in getting rid of redelivery costs and “it never arrived” reorders that Amazon eats.
According to all the anecdotes at my disposal, the Amazon last-mile delivery is strictly inferior to the incumbents, due in no small part to scheduling and pathing algorithms that make no accommodations for the biological functions or psychological needs of the human employees.
Those gig workers will dry up immediately the instant a better job opens up, and the delivery infrastructure Amazon thought it had will turn out to be owned by someone else. If the robots aren't ready in time, they will fall on their face.
Any new entrant is going to have to compete with Amazon on shipping cost/time. Yet Amazon can do it using their own distribution and sorting hubs, from which gig workers use their own cars to do the deliveries.