Which does make me wonder how much better this plan would be than using, say, motorcycle couriers.
If the story had been - 'Amazon to deploy motor bikes to deliver packages within 10 miles of their distribution centre' it'd have received a lot less attention.
Packages are routinely delivered quickly, accurately, securely and cheaply in urban areas. I do think Amazon are solving a problem that doesn't exist. Nice bit of PR though.
Motorcycle couriers are comparatively very expensive - a 10 mile delivery is easily half an hour of real human time (plus gas, wear, etc). It might be "cheap" if they're delivering $50 of (high margin) pizza, but less so if they're delivering a single book. That's the problem they're trying to solve - delivering small items quickly and cheaply.
If the story had been - 'Amazon to deploy motor bikes to deliver packages within 10 miles of their distribution centre' it'd have received a lot less attention.
Packages are routinely delivered quickly, accurately, securely and cheaply in urban areas. I do think Amazon are solving a problem that doesn't exist. Nice bit of PR though.