Amazon to suspend third-party delivery service due to coronavirus
Amazon will suspend its third-party delivery service in the US as it diverts resources to deal with a huge surge in orders from its own customers.
Amazon Shipping, which competed with UPS and Fedex, allowed the ecommerce giant’s drivers to pick up packages from businesses and deliver them to customers — an alternative to shipping from Amazon’s warehouses.
But the online retailer told customers the services will be suspended from June due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Amazon is suspending the service because it needs additional people and capacity to handle booming demand during the crisis, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the decision.
Amazon Shipping is only available in a handful of US cities, and handles non-Amazon and Amazon Marketplace packages.
The company is grappling with a huge rise in orders in the US and around the world as people are forced to stay at home during the health crisis.
The disruption has meant that Amazon has struggled to deliver some orders in time.
“We regularly look at a variety of factors across Amazon to make sure we’re set up in the right way to best serve our customers,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement.
Workers at Amazon’s UK warehouses are being told to work overtime to help meet increased demand, while the firm has said it will hire 100,000 warehouse and delivery workers in the US.