Amazon Sets New Record for Fastest Delivery Service in Its History
Recently, Amazon shared its latest delivery performance for 2023, where last year it provided its fastest delivery service ever to Prime members worldwide, with over 7 billion items delivered on the same or next day, including over 4 billion items in the US and over 2 billion items in Europe.
For sellers, Amazon's global powerful logistics capabilities and resource advantages can also help sellers deliver products to global consumers more quickly and efficiently, thereby enhancing customer service.
Amazon Global CEO of Marketplace Doug Herrington
"We are proud of these advancements, but the journey will not stop. Faster delivery times have always been a long-term goal of Amazon, and we know there is still a lot of room for improvement. Amazon will continue to strive to provide customers with faster delivery services in the future."
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In 2023, Amazon achieved its fastest delivery speed in history by implementing a series of key initiatives that significantly improved delivery times globally. These initiatives included shortening delivery distances, improving inventory placement, and launching Same-Day Delivery services.
In the United States, Amazon implemented regionalization, dividing its fulfillment centers and delivery networks into smaller, more easily serviced areas to more efficiently utilize inventory within each region. Shipping from regional fulfillment centers to delivery stations helped reduce the time packages spent at delivery stations and reduced reliance on air transport. The number of items shipped from regional fulfillment centers in the fourth quarter of 2023 increased by nearly 600 million compared to the same period in 2022.
In Europe, Amazon shortened the average mid-range transport distance of each package by 25 kilometers in 2023.
At the same time, Amazon continued to optimize its global inventory placement, improving the match between inventory and regional fulfillment centers, and distributing goods closer to customers, providing customers with a wider selection of products while enhancing the ability to fulfill orders at the nearest point of distribution.
Moreover, Amazon continued to invest in Same-Day Delivery services. In 2023, nine dedicated sites were added, covering 18 cities in the United States. Currently, there are over 55 dedicated Same-Day Delivery sites in the United States. These mixed-use sites, which integrate operations, sorting, and delivery, significantly improve delivery speed.
In the fourth quarter of 2023, the number of items delivered same-day or next-day in the United States increased by over 65% compared to the same period in 2022. In the UK, over 70% of Prime member orders were delivered the same day or the next day.
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In 2024, Amazon aims to further improve delivery speed. After achieving a breakthrough in delivery speed in 2023, Amazon plans to further enhance delivery efficiency in 2024. Amazon will continue to reshape its operational network, leveraging artificial intelligence to more accurately predict and respond to customer needs, and optimize the layout of goods storage.
At the same time, Amazon also plans to expand the coverage of its same-day delivery service to enable more customers to enjoy fast delivery experiences. Improving delivery speed is not just about achieving fast flow of packages within logistics facilities, but also requires intelligent upgrades in inventory layout and structure.
While pursuing speed, Amazon has always attached great importance to workplace safety, and the accident rate that can be recorded has been decreasing year by year, down by double digits in percentage since 2019.
In 2024, Amazon will focus on the following aspects to improve delivery speed:
Delivering Nearby, Rapid Arrival
Amazon will continuously optimize its operational network to deliver goods from locations closer to customers. This not only improves delivery speed but also reduces the delivery distance and time of packages. In the United States, Amazon will further refine its regionalized operation model to ensure that each regional center has the appropriate scale and can operate efficiently and smoothly.
Last year, Amazon introduced an efficient robot storage system called Sequoia at one of its operation centers in Texas, increasing inventory recognition and storage speed by 75%, and by integrating with other relevant technologies, this system can shorten order processing time by 25%. Additionally, by collecting inventory items into storage boxes and transporting them to newly designed ergonomic workstations, this system also reduces the number of times that operation center employees have to sort or pick customer orders, greatly improving workplace safety. In 2024, Amazon plans to expand this robot storage system to more logistics facilities.
Globally, Amazon is committed to ensuring that customers' required products are stored in the most suitable locations locally or regionally. By leveraging artificial intelligence, Amazon continuously enriches its inventory selection categories to be as close as possible to customer needs, and focuses on storing high-repurchase-rate essential items such as tissues and dog food. This means that more customers can obtain the items they need more quickly.
To improve logistics efficiency For example, the last same-day delivery order on Christmas Eve 2023 was placed at 5:00 PM Pacific Time in Orange County, California, by a customer who purchased a set of children's counting and color sorting toys. Just three hours later, at 7:35 PM, the order was delivered to the customer's hands. In December, Amazon also witnessed the delivery of its billionth package from a same-day delivery station in the United States: a pair of wireless noise-canceling earphones, which was quickly delivered to a customer in Marlboro, New Jersey.
Continuous innovation and expansion of delivery network
Amazon has been constantly innovating to ensure that it can provide timely and efficient delivery services to customers no matter where they are.
To achieve this, Amazon has been expanding its logistics delivery network to cover more rural customers and flexibly adjusting its delivery modes in densely populated areas, such as using bicycles, walking, and picking up items from local businesses (such as grocery stores).
Amazon's Prime Air drone delivery program has also made remarkable progress. In the distribution center at College Station, Texas, Amazon set a record for the fastest order delivery in the fourth quarter of 2023, delivering a box of Annicka chocolate and vanilla bunny cookies to a customer in just 15 minutes and 29 seconds. This year, Amazon hopes to expand its Prime Air drone delivery service to the UK, Italy, and plans to add another operational location in the US to further enhance its delivery capabilities.
