Amazon opening a regional urban parcel hub in Amsterdam region

Amazon is to open a new delivery station in Schiphol, the Netherlands to provide the fast and reliable delivery Amazon customers ‘love and trust’. To meet the increasing customer demand and add capacity and flexibility to its delivery network, Amazon will open its own delivery station and will start working with small and medium-sized independent local delivery companies in addition to its existing carrier partners DHL, PostNL and Redjepakketje.

Parcels will be shipped to the delivery station from the existing European, for example, German or French fulfillment and sortation centres, and loaded onto vehicles to get delivered to customers in the greater Amsterdam area.

Creating jobs

Amazon will create more than 200 direct jobs for sortation associates and management team at the 8.500 sq. meter delivery station. In addition, roughly 450 drivers working for the independent delivery companies will collect parcels from the delivery station and deliver them to Amazon customers.

“Since Amazon started serving customers in the Netherlands, it has established trustful relationships with carriers operating in the country and will continue working closely with them in the future,” says Robert Viegers, Vice-president Amazon Logistics Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands.

Innovation in last-mile

Amazon is also innovating in last-mile delivery solutions to enhance the customer and employee experience. Customers benefit from delivery to a safe place, Map Tracking so that they can see how many stops the driver has before their delivery is due, and Photo on Delivery that shows them that their package was safely delivered and where. These services would automatically become available for packages delivered in the Amsterdam region. Technological advancements, like intelligent route planning, also support the drivers who deliver packages to customers and associates working in the delivery station.

Amazon hardly delivers its own products in Europe; more than 80 percent of products come from third-party suppliers in the Amazon ordering platform. Ordering from Amazon was always difficult. Many suppliers turned out not to deliver to Dutch consumers (and you only see that at the ‘order now’ button), the cost for cross-border parcels was high for Amazon partners, the delivery times long, and track-and-trace was more a ‘fire-and-forget’. You had no idea when, and with whom, delivery is made. E-fulfillment costs at Amazon, despite more scale, are still rising every year; by 2020, those costs will be nearly 28 percent of sales.

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Alex Ootes, Vice President EU Expansion van Amazon: “Selection, value, and convenience are the key drivers of our retail experience for Amazon customers and Dutch businesses play a critical role in delivering that. We are pleased to bring the opportunity for Dutch businesses, small and large, to sign up to sell on Amazon.nl and reach a bigger audience, both at home and abroad, increasing the selection available for our Dutch customers.” In addition, Amazon is now ‘attacking’ the partners of Dutch ordering platforms like Bol.

Amsterdam

And, why Amsterdam? With all the expats in this region, Amazon is a major player here with a large market share. According to Amazon, demand is ‘particularly strong’ in this region. But, no doubt, Amazon will also open distribution centers in Brabant, Gelderland, and other Dutch locations in the coming years. Will Amazon’s Dutch victory soon begin in Amsterdam? The game is on!

Walther Ploos van Amstel.

 

Photo: David Plas

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