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Amazon is now facilitating sea freight shipments

Amazon is now facilitating sea freight shipments

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The company wants to be an end-to-end logistics firm

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Amazon has facilitated the shipment of at least 150 containers of goods on cargo ships from China over the past four months, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. While the company isn’t actually operating its own ships, Amazon reserves container space on ships on behalf of clients and arranges the movement of goods between ports and warehouses.

The global logistics market is worth billions to firms like UPS, FedEx, and the various national post office companies, and Amazon’s ambitions seem to set it up as a one-stop shop for any company looking to move goods around the world.

Early last year, Amazon was awarded a license to operate as an ocean freight forwarder, expanding its logistics and shipping business. Amazon has leased a number of cargo aircraft and its drone delivery ambitions are well known. It even patented a floating airship warehouse that could act as a base of operations for drone deliveries.

Shipping costs are enormous for Amazon and all retailers, and the company has been aggressively expanding its warehousing operations to reduce the distance and shipping time of Amazon-to-customer shipments. The company also has a service, “Fulfillment by Amazon,” which handles warehousing and distribution of products for smaller retailers in an effort to reduce costs for those companies. This sea freight initiative, which may be marketed as “Global Supply Chain by Amazon,” is likely to be a part of that service.