How Amazon Beat Supply Chain Chaos With Ships, Containers And Planes

As supply chain chaos causes shipping delays this holiday season, experts say Amazon’s logistics empire and predictive analytics will allow it to avoid the worst of it. Amazon leased long-haul planes to get goods from China to the U.S. faster, and its been making its own containers and chartering private cargo vessels for years. Now retailers like Walmart, Home Depot, Target, IKEA and Costco are trying out the tactic, chartering smaller vessels to bring goods to less congested ports.

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How Amazon Beat Supply Chain Chaos With Ships, Containers And Planes

[jacob]

Amazing. It's cheaper to buy planes and ships and make your own containers than it is to buy goods made in North America

[BOMBON]

Soon Amazon will be creating its own ports and its own railroads.

[vondahe]

I’m not a fan of Amazon but I genuinely admire the agility of the organisation. Many big companies could learn from that. They can be so rigid because a thick layer of middle managers try to keep things the way they are rather than focusing on increasing productivity through empowerment.

Imagine a big company where potent managers actually THINK tactically.

[balung]

If the United States had its own Manufacturing Industry again, it wouldn't need to worry about supply line breakdowns.

[wesjames]

We all know Bezos takes alot of crap from people and gets meme'd constantly but honestly what he has built is incredibly impressive. It's cool to watch in real time

[ericdavidson]

So basically, Amazon’s strategy is just “If you want something done, you’ve gotta do it yourself”. No wonder they’re such a prosperous company!

[aravinthps]

Amazon has become a formidable empire of it’s own. Here in India too, their logistics is unbelievably fast and reliable. Basically nobody could have imagined such leap in very less time. They are near perfect anticipating worst scenarios and acting proactively.

[nousernamemeuse]

As someone who works in an Amazon fullfillment center, i appreciate the reminder that the seasonal workers are getting these bonuses, while those who have been here for years, get absolutely nothing.

[kylewollman]

AWS was really a blueprint for their shipping business; build out the infrastructure that they need for their own business and then massively scale it to sell to other companies.

[zanem]

From selling books from his garage to this... absolutely incredible!

[deborahfreedman]

So Amazon had the foresight to build up it's own freight moving infrastructure, just as they built up a web service infrastructure, which is giving it a competitive advantage. Soon other companies will become clients of Amazon freight services. Wait about three years, and there will be people screaming about Amazon's monopoly on freight.

[TaylorMMontgomery]

People keep saying "just send the ships to Florida or Texas ports" but there's a little hiccup called the Panama Canal that you have to pass through if you're coming from Asia. It's expensive, takes a lot of time, and most of the newer ships are too big to fit through it anyway

[gregleuze]

You mean they were anticipating future problems and figuring out solutions and just not hoping that the situation reverses itself? Sounds like a company that wants to stay competitive and grow.

[NicLaue]

It always bothers me that few of these reports or companies mention or leverage the railroads to help deal with these shortages. Two employees moving hundreds of containers vs one per truck and container.

[ibendover]

As much as I hate amazon, they are getting through this by being extremely proactive, whereas other companies refuse to adapt and do the bare minimum. Here in australia for example, our public postage system is probably the most reliable service you can use to get your parcels delivered on time, which is the only service amazon used to ship their parcels here. However our corrupt politicians forced the public postage business' ceo to leave because they were doing 'too' good and they wanted to privatize them. Today, it can take upto 2-4 weeks to receive even local orders from them.

Before the effects of this could even be felt by consumers, amazon immediately switched to other partners when the ceo was fired and people still got their parcels on time. Even the crappiest logistics/shipping company in the country started delivering amazon parcels on time somehow.

[TEXININDUSTRIES]

The difference between Walmart and other retailers and Amazon is that Amazon has hundreds of thousands of sellers sending inventory for free to their warehouses. And they get to charge the sellers for this. They aren't so much of a retailer, they are a platform. Kind of like Craigslist, but more advanced. Walmart on the other hand source most of their products directly.
Most of the stuff sitting in those shipping containers that are blocked in California are going to Amazon anyways, so of course Amazon won't be affected by product shortages.

[alwells]

I have been in the technology business since 1997 (at least). Many years ago, I talked with software developers who were building software for last mile delivery, combining freight to fill containers, etc. It's shocking that after all this time, there is still the same problems.

[kokoreborn]

Mrs sonia is legit and her method works like magic I keep on earning every single week with her new strategy.

[bigjdk]

Global trade is crazy, make stuff locally - less pollution, more diverse products, and local employment in things more rewarding than just warehouses.

[dertythegrower]

One of the best reports i've seen on this topic, and I follow a lot of channels that covered this topic...
Solid report.