Amazon Supply Chain Services – with the forgettable acronym “ASCS” – now offers third-party companies the entire range of its logistics services including freight, distribution, fulfillment, and – significantly – parcel shipping solutions. “Any business can now move, store, and deliver everything from raw materials to finished products quickly and reliably, using the same supply chain that supports Amazon.com.”
As Amazon did with AWS technology and cloud services and FBA fulfillment services, it launched ASCS built on services originally developed to power Amazon’s own retail operations worldwide. It seems whatever infrastructure Amazon builds to support its own businesses, it figures out a way to package and offer those services to outside firms.
“Over the past three years, hundreds of thousands of Amazon sellers have trusted the company’s logistics network to move, store, and deliver hundreds of millions of packages across third-party facilities, warehouses, and sales channels beyond the Amazon store,” Amazon said. “The launch of ASCS builds on this momentum, now supporting third-party logistics for businesses in industries such as healthcare, automotive, manufacturing, and retail.”
Amazon said it welcomed businesses of all sizes to use its logistics services, “from moving goods into warehouses to package delivery and everything in between.”
It its announcement on Monday, Amazon said Procter & Gamble, 3M, Lands’ End, and American Eagle Outfitters were among the first to sign up for ASCS and now rely on Amazon’s logistics network across their supply chain “to move inventory, fulfill orders, and deliver packages directly to customers.”
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told CNBC on Wednesday that the value proposition of ASCS was straightforward. “If we can provide those components at a very cost-competitive rate like we do, and at a very high quality, it’s very compelling.”
