Amazon Launches Flex To Rival Postmates In On-Demand, Crowdsourced Delivery
Amazon looked at buying Postmates earlier this year, but in the end it built a service that will go head to head in competing with it: the e-commerce giant today took the wraps off Flex, a new on-demand delivery service …
Context & Ripple Effects
Amazon had looked at buying Postmates earlier this year; instead it launched its own crowdsourced delivery app and went head to head with the startup it almost acquired. Flex enrolls self-employed drivers through an Uber-like app for on-demand package runs, extending Amazon's logistics reach without adding employees or vans.
The launch matters because it converts Amazon's biggest cost center — the last mile — into an elastic labor pool it can scale up and down. Two years later the company was still expanding the model, with Seller Flex trials bringing more fulfillment in-house.
First-order effects
- Postmates now competes directly with a far larger rival whose driver supply is subsidized by an existing delivery volume, squeezing its economics from day one.
- Gig-economy drivers gain a new income source with Amazon-scale demand behind it, alongside existing apps they already juggle.
Second-order effects
- If Flex absorbs enough of Amazon's last-mile volume, traditional carriers like UPS and FedEx lose share of the packages they currently deliver for Amazon, pressuring their network utilization.
- Other retailers face a competitor that can offer faster, cheaper delivery using crowd labor, forcing them to either build similar programs or pay for third-party networks.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points toward last-mile delivery restructuring around on-demand crowdsourced fleets rather than fixed contractor networks, with platforms that control both volume and routing holding the advantage.
- A workforce built on app-coordinated independent contractors invites regulatory scrutiny over gig-worker classification, which could reshape the cost math of the entire model.
The trend: E-commerce logistics is shifting from contracted carrier networks to platform-controlled crowdsourced labor, letting the largest retailers internalize the last mile.