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Amazon Is Using Gig Economy Drivers To Deliver From Malls (bloomberg.com) 46

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Amazon.com is testing a service that uses the company's sprawling network of gig drivers to fetch packages from mall-based retailers and deliver them to customers. From a report: The program, should it become a permanent part of the e-commerce giant's delivery options, could help Amazon expand the variety of goods it has available for fast shipment. Shoppers who want same-day or quicker shipping could be shown products stocked by a local mall store. They order the item from the retailer on Amazon.com, and one of the Seattle-based company's contract drivers delivers it. The service was up and running by last year and relies on Amazon Flex drivers, who use their own vehicles to deliver packages. The geographic range of the pilot is unclear, but communications with drivers reviewed by Bloomberg reference malls with participating retailers in Chandler, Arizona, Las Vegas, Nevada, and Tysons Corner, Virginia.
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Amazon Is Using Gig Economy Drivers To Deliver From Malls More

Amazon Is Using Gig Economy Drivers To Deliver From Malls

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  • The only reason I use Amazon is because the malls don't have what I want.
    • Others may want something from the mall to come to them. Amazon is helping cater to this need with its fleet of drivers and online store. How could you miss that?
    • "In my last post I provided the gentle reader with a full recap of economic trends since 800BC, now it's time to shift our attention to one of the most recent, online shopping.

      Many economists will mistakenly assume that there are many different reasons a consumer may choose to purchase a product online. This is a significant mistake and I think my critical advice here will help you grow your online business well beyond your competitors:
      Consumers only want to purchase items online if that same item canno

    • A mall is of no use to me unless I want a fidget spinner or ladies underpants.

      I'm guessing this is supposed to show that Amazon pretends to care about local businesses.

      • I'm guessing this is supposed to show that Amazon pretends to care about local businesses.

        Care about local businesses? No, I can't see that nor why it would be important. What they care about is getting products from where they are to a paying customer as quickly and efficiently as possible. Amazon is a logistics company.

        Thing is, local stores do have inventory. If a customer wants to buy from Target and the local Target has the item I want, it may be better for everyone to just have a driver pick it up for me. Target gets a sale, Amazon gets a delivery fee, the driver gets a few bucks, and I ge

    • And if you just want delivery from a mall, why use Amazon? It seems like an offering only of use to existing Amazon cult members. If you are a disabled shut-in unable to get to the store, or you need your toilet paper roll in 30 minutes or less because you lack basic planning skills, then why not the same lame gig worker who gets your groceries or picks up the diapers, or any of your other servants?

      • Maybe you have young kids. Maybe you have influenza. Maybe you are waiting in for a plumber. Maybe the item is too heavy or bulky for you to get home on the bus. Maybe you are waiting for another delivery. Maybe you live somewhere with terrible public transport and your car is being repaired. Or maybe it's more efficient for a driver to stop at two or three stores, pickup 93 items for 27 people and deliver them than all of those 27 people driving to the store? You seem to lack imagination to think of a whol
      • In terms of delivery drivers and groceries, many grocery delivery services require a minimum spend, but sometimes items can be missing or substituted for pretty random alternatives. So it's possible to have planned reasonably well but still need an item at short notice. You could maybe argue that you should order well ahead of that special dinner, but with groceries you have to balance the shelf lives of all the items likely to be in it, taking into account minimum spends. I ordered a goose WEEKS in advance

        • So are these emergency orders for a surprise need what Amazon is aiming for? The market for that is large enough to make a profit and justify an organization to develop, rollout, and manage this? It seems far more likely that Amazon is aiming for the lazy people as their market here. Occam's razor.

          There's been a need for elderly shut-ins to get deliveries and such forever, and there are people who do this. Charities, the stores themselves, a city, etc. This does not feel like Amazon is breaking into this

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

            So are these emergency orders for a surprise need what Amazon is aiming for? The market for that is large enough to make a profit and justify an organization to develop, rollout, and manage this? It seems far more likely that Amazon is aiming for the lazy people as their market here. Occam's razor.

            Occam's razor says Amazon doesn't care what the motivation is, just that there is a market. You seem to want to define the market narrowly as elderly shut-ins for reasons unclear to me.

            So the economy kind of sucks, local retail is suffering terribly, inflation is going up, people should be saving money or cutting costs; and here there's a group of people who think "wow, I can pay a lot of money so that someone can drive to the mall for me, sign me up!",

            That's pretty much been the case since the TV dinner was invented 70 years ago - trading cost for convenience. Despite some people being under financial pressure at many points over those 70 years, enough aren't to make a market for convenience offerings.

  • they need to pay like $1/mile + $15/hr+ to get workers to do this.

    • they need to pay like $1/mile + $15/hr+ to get workers to do this.

      Given mall store margins, that should still leave a tidy profit ...

      • Maybe. On the other hand, mall overhead costs (leases, etc.) are very high. Smart retailers will just ship directly from their wholesale warehouses* on the outskirts of town.

        *Not the wholesale outlets, but the actual distribution warehouses.

      • Ask the next door neighbor's kid. "I'll give you $20 to go pick up some toilet paper for me, which is cheaper than having Amazon do it but you're too young to work for them."

    • We've got a recession coming (Score:4, Interesting)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday May 20, 2022 @12:08PM (#62552308)
      and just like the last one they'll be tons of folks desperate to make rent who'll run down their cars for just enough money to keep a roof over their kid's heads.

      Best part is our gov't is actively trying to cause a recession by raising interest rates (in order to reduce money supply) instead of stuff like taxing the rich and building out infrastructure to produce more goods and services to meet demand and reduce profiteering, let alone enforcing anti-trust laws.

      Lots of stuff we could do to reduce inflation that don't involve screwing over working Americans, but somehow we never talk about those. Coincidentally they inconvenience the Elite Old Money. I'm sure that's unrelated.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        The government is doing the correct thing. Interest rates have been too low for too long. Sorry your easy money supply is drying up; maybe try working for your dough like the rest of us instead of borrowing more than you should or relying on your house as a piggy bank.

        • It won't matter much. This is a world wide inflation, and there are world wide interconnectivities in commerce. Biden didn't cause it, Trump didn't cause it. There is little that a national government could do to solve it, the most they can do is try to ameliorate the effects. But this being the US, even that won't really get done as too much effort is being spent making sure the other side gets the blame.

          • Why are we still going to screw over working americans? Thing is public policy can fix this we just have to be willing to do it. For example a huge driver for inflation are rising housing prices. Infrastructure spending resulting in new cities and townships being built would have a huge impact on that. We could also mandate work from home so the companies would be forced to convert office space into apartment complexes. We could also enforce zoning laws and put Airbnb out of business and use property taxes

            • Yeah, because leftism/socialism/communism has always worked way better than free enterprise.

              At least in the mostly empty "minds" of leftists, socialists, and communists.

          • Putting up interest rates might curb it a bit. Just as likely, interest rates go up, the supply shocks vanish, inflation falls, it is attributed by some to the change of interest rates. Perhaps when large Central banks take such a decision one of the small countries like Denmark can be paid to take the opposite action as a control.

      • and just like the last one they'll be tons of folks desperate to make rent who'll run down their cars for just enough money to keep a roof over their kid's heads. Have you considered seizing the means of production, and eliminating the bourgeoisie and the evil people at the top, and installing the workers as the people who run the show?

      • You know they could take every time from the rich, and it would "run our country" for about a day or two. Our government SPENDS too much money, because a lot of them (BOTH parties) want to buy votes! Our FEDERAL government was never meant to have THIS much control over the people. The states were tasked with most everything. The federal governments task was to protect this nation from invasion, and to promote commerce between the states to be equal and fair. Anything else not outlined IN the Constitution

        • Oh, that's ok. If government intervention causes problems in the economy, just fix that, with MORE government intervention in the economy. Lather, rinse, and repeat.

          Or we could organize and use our Second Amendment rights for exactly what they were intended for: to put down tyranny and to re-establish lawful, Constitutional government.

      • So taxing the rich will stop inflation? I am curious to learn how taxing the rich will either reduce demand or increase supply?

        I can see it easily decreasing supply, after all if I am truly rich, why should I work for that extra dollar if the government will just take most of it... easier to just call it quits, I see almost no reduction in demand as there are very few "rich" people, so a slight reduction in them buying things won't make much of a dent... after all it isn't like Jeff Bezos has a lot of free

        • With less money floating around they stopped buying companies left and right. This increases competition and increases employment because we're not constantly being laid off after mega mergers.

          You then take the money that you taxed and spend it building out infrastructure that results in new cities being built. This is what happened under Reagan because the Democrats compromised and let Reagan have all the military spending he wanted in exchange for infrastructure spending. That resulted in new cities b

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Where is the recession coming from?

        Unemployment levels are the lowest ever (not the best figure, but given how many businesses are hiring people and how many can't hire enough people). People are able to jump ship from one job to the next over things like remote work, and get paid more for it.

        The economy is booming - quite robustly. There's a belief supply chain issues are less "problems with supply" and more "demand exploded" - sure there are brief interruptions from some countries going on lockdown, but o

    • They pay in tips and exposure

  • Great so now the problem... (Score:3)

    by Glasswire ( 302197 ) on Friday May 20, 2022 @12:18PM (#62552334) Homepage

    ... of food delivery drivers sucking up all the attention and time of retail food workers away from ordinary take out users will now happen at mall stores where overworked staff won't be able to help you because they're too busy filling delivery orders too.

    • Food delivery is really the worst case for bundling deliveries though, since it's so time-sensitive. Even 'same day shipping for orders before noon' would allow one trip to the mall to pick up orders for dozens of shoppers. With food you're shooting for more like 1/2 hours and lucky if the delivery guy/gal can combine any trips at all.

  • In other words (Score:3)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Friday May 20, 2022 @12:28PM (#62552362) Journal
    Shoppers who want same-day or quicker shipping could be shown products stocked by a local mall store.

    The product is already in the store, but the American is too lazy to drive the 15 minutes to get it, so they'll wait a few hours to get the product. And pay more for it.
  • They still have those?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by k6mfw ( 1182893 )
      One of several Dead Mall Series, https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

      • We have probably a dozen or more dying, or outright dead, malls near Cleveland, Ohio alone.

        Ironically, online shopping has been blamed for their demise.

        I'd say that was only one of many factors. Here, at least, a lot of it was crime, both against property (shoplifting, etc.), and occasionally also against persons.

        There also tended to be a lot too many malls in close proximity to one another. Richmond, Euclid, Severance, Beachwood, Great Lakes and Mentor Malls (the latter two literally across the street fr

  • At some point we really need to ask ourselves... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kaatochacha ( 651922 ) on Friday May 20, 2022 @01:18PM (#62552504)
    How lazy are we willing to get? Is Wall-E an instruction manual?

    • How lazy are we willing to get? Is Wall-E an instruction manual?

      That and Idiocracy. "Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes."

  • Skyrocketing rent is the biggest inflation driver, maybe governments should start allowing more housing units to be built? You can pay 100 people a minimum wage of one million dollars each, but if there are only 10 housing units .. 90 of them will be homeless. And of course, the rent will be nearly one million dollars such that only the 10 people most wanting to be housed will pay.

    • Core inflation has been pretty muted for the last twenty-five years. It took a global pandemic and a war in one of the breadbaskets of the world to cause this. House price inflation is absolutely an issue to address, but is not obviously a cause of core inflation. You COULD argue, though, that different measures of inflation that better account for housing costs should be used. There ARE several series available. It would also be fair to say that different demographics tend to experience different rates of

    • Inflation has only one "driver." The expansion of the money supply at a faster rate than the real growth of output, causing the currently to become less valuable.

      When any *specific* prices go up, as opposed to price levels in general, if the money supply is constant, that results in people spending less on other things, pushing the prices of those things down.

      Diminishing supply compared to demand, of anything, causes prices to rise, and that is some of what is going on, but it is not inflation.

      Inflation is

  • Yesterday would be the minimum for faster than same day deliver wouldn't it?

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