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President Trump Targets Amazon, Calls for U.S. Post Office to Raise Shipment Prices

posted by mrpg on Saturday December 30 2017, @07:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the nobody-thinks-of-the-dogs dept.

takyon writes:

Trump targets Amazon in call for postal service to hike prices

U.S. President Donald Trump targeted Amazon on Friday in a call for the country's postal service to raise prices of shipments in order to recoup costs, picking another fight with the online retail giant he has criticized in the past. "Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE!" Trump wrote on Twitter.

The U.S. Postal Service, which runs at a big loss, is an independent agency within the federal government and does not receive tax dollars for operating expenses, according to its website. The organization makes up a significant portion of the $1.4 trillion U.S. delivery industry. Other players include United Parcel Service Inc and Fedex Corp.

[...] Amazon has shown interest in the past in shifting into its own delivery service. In 2015, the company spent $11.5 billion on shipping, 46 percent of its total operating expenses that year. In October, Bloomberg reported that Amazon was testing its own delivery service to move products more quickly out of its overcrowded warehouses and make more of them available for free two-day delivery. However, Amazon said at the time that it was using the same carrier partners to offer the program as it has used for years, including the U.S. Postal Service, UPS and FedEx.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by TheRaven on Saturday December 30 2017, @02:25PM (1 child)

    by TheRaven (270) on Saturday December 30 2017, @02:25PM (#615846) Journal
    Why? Amazon is large enough that it increasingly makes sense for them to use their in-house delivery service, rather than ship things through the post. All raising prices would do is move the threshold for which this makes sense, reducing the volume that Amazon shipped through the post. It would make it harder for smaller companies to compete with Amazon though...
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  • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday January 02 2018, @04:32PM

    by urza9814 (3954) on Tuesday January 02 2018, @04:32PM (#616755) Journal

    Why? Amazon is large enough that it increasingly makes sense for them to use their in-house delivery service, rather than ship things through the post. All raising prices would do is move the threshold for which this makes sense, reducing the volume that Amazon shipped through the post. It would make it harder for smaller companies to compete with Amazon though...

    Actually, that could *help* small businesses. Amazon has special contracts with USPS, giving them better rates, making it harder for smaller businesses to compete. If Amazon were forced to move more to their own in-house delivery service, even where it costs more than current post office rates, that would seem to help small businesses by bringing the shipping costs closer to equal.

    http://fortune.com/2017/07/16/amazon-postal-service-subsidy/ [fortune.com]