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 keeping 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 feels like that break up is perhaps attributable to a breakdown in negotiations between Amazon and the USPS somewhat than Amazon proactively pullings its enterprise. Amazon supplied Engadget with the next assertion relating to the Put up‘s reporting and its negotiations with the USPS:

“The USPS is a longstanding and trusted associate and we stay dedicated to working collectively. We’ve continued to debate methods to increase our partnership that might enhance our spend with them, and we look ahead to listening to extra from them quickly — with the purpose of extending our relationship that began greater than 30 years in the past. We have been stunned to listen to they wish to run an public sale after almost a yr of negotiations, so we nonetheless have loads to work by way of. Given the change of route and the uncertainty it provides to our supply community, we’re evaluating all of our choices that might guarantee we will proceed to ship for our clients.”

The public sale Amazon is referring to could be a “reverse public sale,” in keeping with the Put up. The USPS would offer its mailing capabilities to the best bidder, primarily making Amazon and different high-volume shippers compete for USPS assets. 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 keeping 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 amount of the US Postal Service (at the 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 must maintain elevating its costs, could create extra urgency for the corporate to remove its reliance on the service altogether.

The Postal Service has struggled to modernize and adapt (its try to affect 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 pace. The ever-accelerating digitization of communication and heavy funding in privately owned transport operations threatens the very existence of one of many nation’s best public items.

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