Prime’s “subprime” delivery service...

For a while, Amazon has been contemplating to launch its own delivery service, and now, its blue vans can be seen all over American neighborhoods.

Even though the company has used Fedex, UPS and the postal service for years, it would love to reduce its huge shipping bill and that’s one reason why it’s bringing that activity in house. That way can make even more money, following the typical American greed scenario.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, can’t help but look at UPS huge quarterly profits and salivate in thinking that even a piece of that pie would be a big boost to its bottom line. Also, by handling deliveries itself, Amazon can speed up delivery times and attract more customers to buy its Prime memberships. Finally, it can also track deliveries on its own, and not be caught in the middle when customers complain that they’ve never received their order.

All this sounds good in theory, but the devil is in the details, as shipping and delivering is yet another set of skills that must be mastered before it becomes fully operational and competitive. To get off and running quickly, Amazon created its “Delivery Service Partners”, a new program aimed at entrepreneurs willing to invest into their own Amazon delivery service for as low as a $10,000. If successful, owners are told they can expect to earn between $75,000 and $300,000 in annual profits. Recently, I experimented twice with that brand new “Prime” delivery system.

On June 3, I had ordered a communication device and never received it. We weren’t home as the parcel should have been delivered, but obviously wasn’t to be found. Sure, the order confirmation showed a photo of the parcel next to an entry door, except that it wasn’t mine. I had to spend 30 minutes chatting with an Amazon associate to explain the situation, hear his side of the story, and get the transaction credited back to me.

I immediately re-ordered the part and on June 5 was expecting it again. This time, I was cautious and followed the interactive map that popped up on my computer, so when the delivery van was just 300 yards from my home, I stepped outside and waited for the van to arrive.

Arrived it did, but seemingly without any intention of stopping at my place. I had to get in the middle of the road, wave the lady behind the wheel until she stopped and gave me my parcel. She seemed totally clueless and obviously not up to the task.

All this to say that Mr. Bezos will have a few improvements to make if he wants to stay in the package delivery business and not drive his customers away…