Amazon van drivers' on-time delivery rate falls during Cyber Week

FILE PHOTO: An Amazon Prime van during a press conference announcing Amazon.com’s new program to help entrepreneurs build businesses delivering Amazon packages, including $1 million to fund startup costs for military veterans, at an event space in Seattle, Washington, U.S., June 27, 2018. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc van drivers’ on-time delivery rate declined after record Cyber Monday orders pressured the top online retailer’s growing logistics business.

The drivers, who work for companies that deliver exclusively for Amazon, had an on-time delivery rate of 93.7% for the Cyber Monday week ended Dec. 7. That was down from 98.2% during the Thanksgiving week ended Nov. 30, consulting firm ShipMatrix said on Wednesday.

Amazon did not immediately comment on the holiday performance of the van delivery drivers, who exclusively deliver its merchandise to customer doorsteps. Before the report, Amazon said poor weather may have affected some deliveries. The ShipMatrix results exclude weather-related delays that affected deliveries in the New England states.

Data for United Parcel Service Inc, FedEx Corp and the U.S. Postal Service was not immediately available.

“Since Amazon is a retailer, fulfillment company and delivery carrier (all-in-one), its customers could have experienced greater delays but those delays could be resulting from delays in the fulfillment of the order,” ShipMatrix President Satish Jindel said.

This holiday season is a crucial test for Amazon’s logistics unit that traces its roots to 2013 – when an unexpected surge in Amazon packages swamped shippers, delayed gifts and prompted the Seattle company to take control of delivering merchandise to people’s homes.

Amazon partner van drivers will drop off roughly 275 million packages between Thanksgiving and Christmas, more than double last year’s number. Shippers overall are expected to deliver nearly 2.5 billion holiday parcels this year, according to ShipMatrix, which has been using proprietary software to track on-time deliveries since 2013.

Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and David Gregorio

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source: reuters.com