Amazon has significantly expanded its footprint in NYC, where ~2.4M packages are delivered daily, adding at least nine delivery stations in the past year
Context & Ripple Effects
New York City is where Amazon's logistics buildout is most visible. The company started small there in 2015 with Prime Now delivering from local Manhattan stores, then spent years scaling national infrastructure until research put next-day delivery within reach of 72% of the US population. By late 2019, Morgan Stanley estimated Amazon was already delivering half of its own US packages and on track to pass UPS and FedEx in total volume.
First-order effects
- Adding at least nine delivery stations in a year means Amazon is shortening the last mile in its densest market, cutting cost and delivery time per package across ~2.4M daily NYC deliveries.
- The expansion pairs with Amazon's earlier move to add 2,000 corporate jobs in New York City, concentrating both fulfillment and decision-making headcount in one metro.
Second-order effects
- UPS and FedEx face share erosion in exactly the high-density urban routes where their economics are strongest, pressuring pricing and network utilization as Amazon internalizes more volume.
- Demand for industrial real estate near residential NYC neighborhoods rises as carriers and retailers compete for comparable last-mile sites.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the endpoint is a retailer operating as a full-scale national parcel carrier — consistent with the later data showing Amazon shipped 5.2B US packages in 2022, surpassing UPS after passing FedEx in 2020 — restructuring who owns the last mile in American commerce.
The trend: Amazon is converting e-commerce scale into owned last-mile infrastructure city by city, turning UPS and FedEx's core urban business into a competitive battleground.