Amazon reportedly contemplating ending ties with the US Postal Service

Amazon is reportedly contemplating discontinuing use of the US Postal Service and constructing out its personal transport community to rival it, in accordance with The Washington Post. The e-commerce behemoth spends greater than $6 billion a yr on the general public mail provider, representing simply shy of 8 % of the service’s total revenues. That is up from simply shy of $4 billion in 2019, and Amazon continues to develop.

Nevertheless, it seems like that break up is likely to be attributable to a breakdown in negotiations between Amazon and the USPS quite than Amazon proactively pullings its enterprise. Amazon offered Engadget with the next assertion concerning the Submit‘s reporting and its negotiations with the USPS:

“The USPS is a longstanding and trusted companion and we stay dedicated to working collectively. We’ve continued to debate methods to increase our partnership that may enhance our spend with them, and we stay up for listening to extra from them quickly — with the aim of extending our relationship that began greater than 30 years in the past. We have been shocked to listen to they wish to run an public sale after practically a yr of negotiations, so we nonetheless have so much to work by means of. Given the change of path and the uncertainty it provides to our supply community, we’re evaluating all of our choices that may guarantee we will proceed to ship for our prospects.”

The public sale Amazon is referring to can be a “reverse public sale,” in accordance with the Submit. The USPS would offer its mailing capabilities to the best bidder, basically making Amazon and different high-volume shippers compete for USPS sources. This transfer would reportedly be a results of the breakdown in talks between Amazon and the USPS.

Over the previous decade, Amazon has invested closely in transport logistics, buying its own Boeing planes, debuting electric delivery vans and slowly constructing out a drone delivery network. Final yr, Amazon dealt with over 6.3 billion parcels, a 7 % enhance over the earlier yr, in accordance with the Pitney Bowes parcel shipping index. USPS, for its half, dealt with roughly 6.9 billion, only a 3 % enhance over 2023. That’s to say that Amazon’s transport community can already deal with over 90 % of the quantity of the US Postal Service (at the very least by sheer numbers).

The USPS has been in dire monetary situation for a while, losing billions of dollars a yr. Negotiations between Amazon and the general public provider have reportedly stalled, which, along with the company’s have to hold elevating its costs, might create extra urgency for the corporate to get rid of its reliance on the service altogether.

The Postal Service has struggled to modernize and adapt (its try to impress the truck fleet was a bust) in a market the place the likes of Amazon and Walmart are investing billions in delivering packages across the nation at lightning velocity. The ever-accelerating digitization of communication and heavy funding in privately owned transport operations threatens the very existence of one of many nation’s biggest public items.

Replace, December 4, 2025, 2:24PM ET: This story has been up to date with an announcement from Amazon and extra particulars in regards to the “reverse public sale” the USPS reportedly desires to conduct if it not works with Amazon.