Amazon.com appears to be expanding its one- to two-day delivery capabilities throughout the U.S. in a move to boost sales in the remote regions of the country and eliminate its reliance on the postal service for parcel delivery in rural areas, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
To reach deeper into rural America, the company is using hyper-efficient warehouses, contracted drivers, and mom-and-pop shops, according to the report. The company isn’t trying to deliver itself to 100% of its customers in the U.S., but as of now, it is targeting around 90%, people familiar with its plans told WSJ.
Maya Vautier, an Amazon spokeswoman, told WSJ that expanding the rural delivery network “will help cut delivery times for customers in smaller towns and more isolated parts of the country.”
The plan is also a way to lessen the company’s exposure to the U.S. Postal Service. “The USPS isn’t worried about the competition,” a spokesman told the Journal. “The Postal Service’s infrastructure enables daily package delivery to every address at an affordable rate that competitors would be hard-pressed to match,” the USPS spokesman added.
“If Amazon believes it can deliver its packages more efficiently than the USPS, it will do so,” company insiders told WSJ.
