Amazon's shipping investments, like chartering cargo ships, making its own containers, and chartering long-haul planes, are helping it avoid supply chain chaos
CNBCKatie Schoolov
Context & Ripple Effects
This story is the pandemic-era payoff of a build-out that started quietly years earlier: Amazon confirmed in an online freight-matching service back in 2019, then spent 2021 chartering cargo ships, manufacturing its own containers, and leasing long-haul planes so its holiday deliveries wouldn't queue behind congested ports. The same month, Ben Thompson's analysis argued those investments — mostly domestic US logistics — are precisely what make Amazon attractive to third-party merchants and customers.
What makes this more than a resilience story is that the network is already being rented out: per the Financial Times coverage, Amazon has been growing a shipping service serving companies including Etsy and Walmart, taking a slice of competitors' businesses with its own logistics efficiency.
First-order effects
Amazon keeps its own delivery promises through the 2021 port congestion and holiday peak, where rivals dependent on shared ocean and air capacity face delays.
Third-party sellers on Amazon's marketplace get continuity of fulfillment when common-carrier capacity is scarce, reinforcing the merchant case for staying on the platform.
Second-order effects
Competitors like Walmart and Etsy are in an awkward position: they can buy capacity from Amazon's network (as the FT reported), which funds and densifies the very infrastructure competing against them.
Carriers and freight forwarders lose pricing leverage during disruption cycles because their largest customer increasingly owns its own ships, containers, and planes.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, vertically integrated logistics stops being a cost hedge and becomes a product line — culminating in offerings like Amazon's Supply Chain Services, which opens the network end-to-end from raw materials to final delivery.
US retail logistics structurally consolidates around Amazon's network: the overhaul of its domestic logistics network shows inventory placement and even site search now bend around owned infrastructure rather than rented carrier schedules.
The trend: Retail logistics is consolidating around vertically integrated owner-operators, as Amazon converts crisis-driven infrastructure bets into a rentable supply chain platform.
There are obviously legitimate reasons to criticize Amazon, but when it comes to capital investment and longterm planning, it basically does all of the things progressives constantly say they wish American corporations would do. https://twitter.com/...
“Amazon's volume as an ocean vendor — that's right, you heard me correct, they're considered an ocean vendor — would rank them in the top five transportation companies in the Trans Pacific” #Logistics #SupplyChain https://www.cnbc.com/...
One advantage of being big enough to charter own ships is you can opt for a different port if original destination is backed up If you have 1 container on a big ship, ship goes where it goes—you can't course correct if there's a weeks-long wait to unload https://www.cnbc.com/...
Bloodsuckers, solving supply problems on their own while everybody else is queuing. What kind of selfish disorganized system is that? https://twitter.com/...
Meet Amazon, the shipping giant! Amazon apparently spent more than $61 billion on shipping in 2020, up from just under $38 billion in 2019. Amazon now ships ~72% of its own packages, up from less than 47% in 2019! https://www.cnbc.com/... https://twitter.com/...
“Still, Amazon has seen a 14% rise in out-of-stock items and an average price increase of 25% since January 2021, according to e-commerce management platform CommerceIQ.” 6% inflation. I call BS. https://www.cnbc.com/...
‘Amazon is making its own containers & bypassing supply chain chaos with chartered ships & cargo aircraft’ This is a perfect example of how supply chain issues are not impacting all companies equally It's generally far more challenging for the little guy https://www.cnbc.com/...
Champions always find a way out of Adversity & Chaos - Well done Amazon👇 Amazon is making its own containers and bypassing supply chain chaos with chartered ships and long-haul planes https://www.cnbc.com/...
Amazon is making its own containers and bypassing supply chain chaos with chartered ships and long-haul planes https://www.cnbc.com/... - You had me at “making its own containers.” What seems like a problem is often not, it's a spotlight on the dim.