Amazon throws open its logistics network, but experts say brands will be skeptical

Amazon has been in the shipping and delivery game for years. What’s new is that the e-commerce giant is now opening its entire network of physical logistics, fulfillment, shipping, and delivery to any business.

On May 4, the tech giant said it will offer its entire network of freight, warehousing, fulfillment, and shipping to any business, and not just sellers selling via Amazon. Think of it as renting out Amazon as a shipper for the least sexy part of retail, aka logistics. So far, brands testing out the new Amazon Supply Chain Services (ASCS) are Procter & Gamble, American Eagle Outfitters, and Lands’ End, among others.

“Amazon is one of our key e-commerce partners, and we’re excited to leverage Amazon Supply Chain Services to position inventory closer to customers so we can reach them even faster,” Lands’ End CEO Andrew McLean said in a statement. “This consistency is central to our solutions-based approach, enabling us to serve customers with confidence and agility, especially during peak seasons.”

According to one logistics expert, brands, generally speaking, will view the Amazon news with a healthy dose of skepticism. The Covid-19 pandemic taught retailers and merchants not to rely on one partner when it comes to running supply chains. Brands typically tend to spread logistics across multiple vendors so if one breaks down, the whole operation doesn’t grind to a halt.

• About 87% of businesses offload their shipping and logistics to a 3PLs, a 25% jump from 2024, per a 3PL study published in 2025.

“I think Covid-19 and some of these tough times that we’ve experienced over the last few years have really taught us to create some redundancy in our supply chain and not have all our eggs, figuratively speaking, under one roof,” Matthew Hertz, founder and CEO of Third Person, an AI-powered platform for e-commerce brands to connect with fulfillment partners, told Retail Brew. “I’d rather spread my vendor selection across several partners to sort of maintain that contingency or redundancy.”

Still, Amazon’s pitch is being viewed as something solid given their success with the marketplace and the FBA program.

“I’d say it’s big news but perhaps it’s more loud than actually material,” Hertz said. “Unless you believe that brands will consolidate all their fulfillment into an Amazon hub, which I don’t think [will happen], it’ll have a massive impact.”

Familiar territory: In 2023, Amazon released Supply Chain by Amazon to handle supply chain headaches for Amazon sellers, both for the products they sell via Amazon and through other sales channels, including online and physical stores.

Hertz said the company’s most recent announcement “is actually similar to what they announced three years ago.” He added that according to brands he’s talked to, “that initial service was actually not very well received, and this new service…it almost kind of feels more like a relaunch.”

However, Peter Larsen, VP of ASCS, told the Wall Street Journal: “We’ve already got hundreds of thousands of Amazon sellers using these Amazon supply-chain services for their off-Amazon volume. If they didn’t trust us, there are lots of other opportunities out there.”

Zoom out: Amazon’s new supply chain service is hoping to replicate the success of its cloud computing business arm Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon built AWS for itself, then realized it could rent it out to other businesses and turned it into a major revenue driver that grew 28% (fastest since 2022) in the most recent quarter.

However, scaling supply chain and logistics as a business would mean building warehouses, hiring people, and buying more automation. It’s a physical, boots-on-the-ground operation and that makes it a lot harder to dominate, Hertz said.

“The market is incredibly fragmented,” he said. “There’s literally over 10,000 3PLs in the United States alone, and unlike their AWS business, this is not a winner-take-all market.”