Amazon goes after Uber and a slew of other on-demand startups with its own delivery service
Starting today in Seattle, Amazon Flex will pay part-time drivers to deliver Amazon's Prime Now packages. Drivers will get paid between $18 and $25 an hour to work for Amazon.
In order to become a driver, you'll have to provide your own car and Android phone. In the future, the company says, they may expand beyond car-based delivery to letting couriers deliver on bike or on foot.
"You can choose any available 2, 4, and 8-hour blocks of time to work the same day, or set availability for up to 12 hours per day for the future," Amazon says on its website announcing Flex. "You can work as much or as little as you want."
Amazon Prime Now is the company's one-hour delivery service. Earlier this year, reports surfaced that Amazon was considering paying humans to deliver packages - the news of Amazon Flex confirms that.
Amazon Flex sounds a lot like Postmates. Postmates is part of a competitive group of on-demand delivery services. One of its New York-based competitors, WunWun, sold to startup Alfred earlier this year. But one thing that makes Postmates stand out is its dedication to delivering goods in under an hour. Another is its partnerships with high-profile companies.
Uber, too, has tried to enter the delivery and logistics market with a courier service called UberRUSH. It uses bike messengers to bring small items from point A to point B.
Uber has also run on-demand tests for ice cream, roses, helicopter rides, flu shots, and even kittens. Its UberEATS service - a sort of Grubhub killer - launched in Los Angeles last year and has since expanded those services to New York City, Toronto, Austin, Chicago, and Barcelona. In each of its participating cities, Uber partners with a couple restaurants a day to offer meals to its customers, which the company delivers via courier within just a few minutes.
Besides Seattle, Amazon Flex is rolling out in Baltimore, Chicago, Manhattan, Austin, Dallas, Miami, Portland, Atlanta, and Indianapolis, though there's no timeframe for when it expects to expand the service.