Amazon relaxes delivery requirements! For the first time in FBA history!

As the delivery situation in the United States becomes increasingly severe, sellers may face the negative impact of a large number of delayed deliveries. Therefore, Amazon notified sellers yesterday that it would relax the delivery time requirements of the SFP program to help more sellers overcome the difficulties of this epidemic.

According to internal Amazon information revealed by foreign media, Amazon is adjusting the delivery speed requirements for SFP sellers. After the update, sellers only need to ensure 55% of the next-day delivery time to maintain eligibility for the SFP program.

SFP is what we commonly call Seller Fulfilled Prime. Self-delivery products participating in this program can enjoy the "Prime" delivery logo and traffic inclination just like FBA products while ensuring delivery time.

When the epidemic caused serious delivery problems, SFP sellers were the most affected. Not only did they have to deal with customer complaints caused by delivery delays, but they also faced the risk of losing their SFP qualifications . Therefore, Amazon’s relaxation of the requirements this time was very timely, giving SFP sellers a certain buffer space.

However, please note that there will be a new change to the SFP program. Starting from February, SFP sellers will need to provide delivery services on Saturdays , and this will also be included in the next-day delivery rate. This change will still take effect as scheduled, especially with the Spring Festival next month. Sellers participating in the SFP program must pay attention to setting the delivery time in advance, otherwise they will be in holiday mode.

Amazon has been very active in the past two days. In addition to relaxing delivery requirements for sellers, it also made the first major purchase in Amazon's logistics history, buying 11 Boeing 767s as cargo planes in one go!

Yesterday, Amazon announced that it had purchased 11 second-hand Boeing 767 aircraft from Delta Air Lines and WestJet Airlines, which will be added to the cargo fleet of its own logistics business after a brief modification and refurbishment.

Although Amazon already has a large cargo fleet, before this purchase, all the aircraft in the fleet were leased. This purchase is the first time in Amazon's history that it has officially purchased aircraft for its own use , which is of great significance.

Amazon said that consumers have higher and higher expectations for expected delivery time, and owning its own transport aircraft will make it easier for Amazon to manage and improve transportation efficiency . These new cargo aircraft will significantly increase the air transport capacity of its own physical operations and reduce delivery delays during the epidemic.

However, some industry insiders believe that Amazon's purchase is likely not just for transporting packages ! If it is just for transporting goods, leasing can also be competent. Under what circumstances would Amazon choose to buy instead of leasing? It must be that Amazon is preparing to make large-scale modifications to these aircraft or use them for testing . Such leased aircraft are definitely not suitable, so they can only buy them.

Considering that Amazon recently acquired Zoox, an autonomous driving system startup, and also obtained drone operation approval from the Federal Aviation Administration, it seems that Amazon is likely to make big moves in the field of driverless driving!

In the long run, this type of unmanned cargo logistics method will definitely have great advantages in cost and operation and maintenance over traditional logistics companies such as UPS and FedEx .

This will allow Amazon to further erode the logistics market. As Amazon strengthens its control over the entire logistics chain and terminates its relationship with companies such as FedEx and UPS, the Amazon platform has contracted more than half of the packages in the United States. Although Amazon is still cooperating with third parties to deliver these packages, in the future this huge market will likely be swallowed up by Amazon alone, and then our platform delivery fees may undergo a huge change.

Although this will be a move that will disrupt the logistics industry, we will not be able to see the results of this driverless car at least this year, so everyone still needs to be prepared to deal with delivery delays in the near future.