https://flex.amazon.com/ Available now in Seattle. Coming soon to Manhattan, Baltimore, Miami, Dallas, Austin, Chicago, Indianapolis, Atlanta, and Portland. Why does Dallas and Austin get this, but not Houston. Houston is always getting shafted.
We get shafted in Houston on city-based initiatives that involve logistics because Houston is HUGE. Of course, there's Chicago up there debunking my theory...
Imagine being an Uber driver and making Amazon Flex runs. If you could nail down a routine and memorize a city I imagine you could do pretty well for yourself.
We keep inching closer to that world where nobody ever has to leave their home. Next will be delivery straight to your bed and you won't even have to get out of bed except to use the bathroom... until some app shows up that helps you with that!
There's no way Amazon can be making money off of this while paying drivers $18-$25 an hour. They are either losing a ton of money or they are about to jack up Amazon Prime again to cover the cost.
Probably much cheaper to pay the unemployed to hustle for $20/hr than maintain (and get the legal clearance for) a fleet of robot helicopters.
Dallas proper can't hold a candle to Houston in terms of size or population. If you ever drive the Dallas loop, it's tiny compared to BW8. The DFW metroplex is comparable (and even a little larger, IIRC).
Amazon's goal is to be at zero profit though, as it is building measurable infrastructure to support future fulfillment at higher margins. They are spending their profits. And they have lots of cash flow to do it. Also, they only hold 1% of retail so they can try to sweep that up with investments for what seems like forever. If they don't try to raise that percentage, some other business model will try to take it from them. So they spend their profit. The shareholders are going to and are currently getting screwed because of all the investing, but 100 years from now, if the shareholders stick it out, they will reap, as amazon will be like a giant vegas casino, just taking their cut on every transaction world wide with huge margins. That's the goal. And that's why they are doing this.
It sounds all well and good until they implant a chip under your skin to track your movements and penalize you a dollar an our for every minute you are late with a package while systematically loading you down with 8 to 10 packages an hour to deliver. lol, suckers!
