New Amazon Shipping Service Could Benefit Third-Party Sellers

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is considering a shipping service of its own.

Why?

Last year alone, Amazon spent $21.7 billion shipping products sold on its site to its customers. Many of those customers weren’t charged.

According to several reports, Amazon is going to be rolling out Shipping with Amazon in Los Angeles. It’s going to be a shipping service owned by Amazon competing against the likes of FedEx and UPS, if only in that specific market to start.

Shipping with Amazon

The goal of Shipping with Amazon is to get products from a third-party seller on the site to their customers. If your small business sells on Amazon, this would be another shipping option for you to choose.

The impetus for the initiative is obviously money.

Plus, Amazon is vying to be with its customers from beginning to end, not passing off the most important task, fulfillment, to another company.

“Amazon’s move to add delivery services to their business customers is a demonstration of how they are working to enable end-to-end, customer-centric experiences for everyone,” says Scott Webb, president of Avionos, a company that specializes in improving ecommerce customer experience, in an email to Small Business Trends.

He adds, “We’re seeing the online and offline worlds further converge in B2B and a more streamlined digital process emerge. That will ultimately lead to greater efficiencies and customer satisfaction.”

Amazon recently announced that it’s doing the same — taking an active role in delivery of the sales it makes — with groceries in several cities. The online retailer promises to get orders to customers in 2 hours.

“Amazon is always looking for segments to disrupt and that B2C expectations are influencing the B2B world. Expanding their delivery service to businesses is a perfect example of this,” Ray Grady, president and Chief Customer Officer at CloudCraze, tells Small Business Trends in an email.  “Amazon is making large investments in B2B commerce and, if businesses want to compete and maintain their market share, they’ll need to offer an online buying option as well.”

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This article, "New Amazon Shipping Service Could Benefit Third-Party Sellers" was first published on Small Business Trends