The New York Times has a story headlined, “Amazon Is Everywhere. That’s What Makes It So Vulnerable.”
Here’s the thesis:
“Amazon’s recent growth helped create the choke points that workers have sought to exploit. During its first two decades, the company stayed out of the delivery business and simply handed off your cat toys and razor blades to the likes of UPS, FedEx and the Postal Service.
“Amazon began transporting many of its own packages after the 2013 holiday season, when a surge of orders backed up UPS and other carriers. Later, during the pandemic, Amazon significantly increased its transportation footprint to handle a boom in orders while seeking to drive down delivery times. Hence all those new vans.
“The problem is that shipping networks are fragile.
“If workers walk off the job at one of Amazon’s traditional warehouses, the fulfillment center, the business impact is likely to be minimal because the sheer number of warehouses means orders can be easily redirected to another one.
“But a shipping network has far less redundancy. If one site goes down, typically either the packages don’t arrive on time or the site must be bypassed, often at considerable expense. All the more so if the site handles a huge volume of packages.”
You can read the entire story here.
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