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Amazon Flex
- notjustanymike 11y agoComing soon to Baltimore! Good luck with that fellas!
- vkjv 11y agoI have lived in Baltimore my entire life and this comment is an enigma. I assume this is some type of jab at crime, but IMHO, Baltimore is perfect for this kind of operation. To name a few reasons: * Urban environment. Lots of deliveries in a short period of time. * Amazon DH is conveniently located near I-95 for easy access to the city as well as I-695 and surrounding suburbia. * Traffic actually isn't that bad compared with other urban areas.
- zo7 11y agoYeah I don't get what the comment was getting at either. People robbing drivers, I guess? (Although I've never heard of such things happening) I agree with your points though - something like this would be perfect for the city!
- DarkTree 11y agoI live in Baltimore, and the only thing I can think of that the OP is referring to is the fact that it is extremely risky to get anything delivered to your place while away. If something is sitting on your front stoop, it is very likely to get stolen, even in the nicer neighborhoods. However, I don't see this being different than any other city.
- elsurudo 11y agoHe's probably been watching a bit too much of The Wire.
- notjustanymike 11y agoI love this assumption. It's partially true; I lived in Baltimore during the time they were filming the Wire. They used to interrupt my commute home by filming in my neighborhood.
- kra34 11y agoSeriously, traffic isn't that bad? https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1&v=Cds9uQMQAnA https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1&v=Cds9uQMQAnA and also the governor of the state wrote an oped about how bad Baltimore city is at being a city: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bs-ed-hogan-baltimore-20150917-story.html http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bs-ed-hogan-baltimo... I have lived in Baltimore for over 10 years. The roads are in terrible shape, there are only two streets to get across town and they are jammed 12 hours a day. 95 is under heavy construction and the entry points into the city from 95 no longer support the volume of traffic.
- ashishk 11y agoI live in Baltimore (after NYC, SF, Boston). Love it here. Downvoted your comment because it is uninformed and adds nothing of value.
- bkanber 11y agoGreat idea on Amazon's part; they're already set up to handle the logistics for this kind of last-mile delivery stuff. Of course, one could argue that moves like this and pushing us towards the gig economy are a net negative for our future economy. They seem to be compensating fairly (for now?) at least.
- deanCommie 11y agoMy theory is these jobs need to last only long enough for society to get it's head out of it's ass and introduce a universal basic income policy
- LesZedCB 11y agoI agree. It's truly scary how willingly people welcome a system that commoditizes the workforce literally nothing more than a number per hour. I mean, the absolute only thing standing in the way of everybody who signs up to work for Amazon Flex is a self driving car, same with Uber. I understand that supply for these jobs is pretty elastic, but if the workforce doesn't protect themselves, people who become dependent on companies with payment schemes like this will quickly find themselves hurt. A basic income would offer so much economic and social protection for a workforce for tasks like this.
- officemonkey 11y agoMy theory is these jobs need to last only long enough for self-driving cars to get commoditized.
- jblok 11y agoSo I imagine the question every self employed person with a car will be asking themselves right now is this: will I make more money driving for Uber or driving for Amazon?
- stanislavb 11y agoWell, I presume Amazon Flex would have lower acceptance criteria than Uber. Just because of the different nature of services. For example, if you have an old car, you may not be suitable for Uber.
- arethuza 11y agoSomebody needs to work out how you drop of packages for Amazon while driving passengers around for Uber. Actually - not completely crazy - how willing would you be as a passenger to take a few detours to get a saving on your taxi bill?
- hellofunk 11y agoUber has already branched out to meal deliveries, so this is not far from their wheelhouse... no pun intended (actually it was).
- mseebach 11y agoUber Pool for things.
- dogma1138 11y agoIn London you see them working for food and other delivery services on the side quite often.
- wyldfire 11y agoHmm. Sounds like an opportunity for a new business? Fluber will spawn itself as a broker to both services -- you just go where the app tells you and pick up your cargo (packages or people) and shuttle them to where the app tells you to go.
- netcraft 11y agoI wonder why the range of hourly rates? Start out at 18 and move up to 25 with experience?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- dogma1138 11y agoCould be different rates for different cities, as well as different size of packages perhaps (e.g. upto 5lbs pp 18, 10lbs pp 20 etc..), since it's BYOC (thanks Uber..) it also might be related to your maximum distribution range, the further you are willing to go the more you are getting paid since it increases your fuel costs.
- ekianjo 11y agoit could be depending on how many units you can deliver per hour on average ?
- organsnyder 11y agoCould be some sort of surge pricing model. During busier times, the rate could go up to attract more drivers.
- patrickyan 11y agoMight actually be a per package/delivery rate that they estimate to be $18-25 per hour. I highly doubt Amazon would pay an hourly wage when some people might only do one delivery per hour. It's just marketing to attract people, just like how Uber advertises to drivers that the average Uber driver income is $90,000/year.
- suvelx 11y agoI've got a suspicion that Amazon has been trialling/building this in the UK since their purchase of Yodel, perhaps earlier. A number of times some bloke in a car has turned up and delivered me a package. No uniform, no branding. Just a phone running Amazon software. I can't say it's the greatest experience.
- joshstrange 11y agoHow was the experience bad? I never see my UPS delivery guy so I can't imagine it matters one way or the other to me how my packages "magically" show up on my front porch.
- hmmdiggy 11y agoWe've had packages delivered by an individual similar to survelx, and the guy clearly smokes in his car as the package stinks of smoke and it even penetrates the items inside on occasion (clothing). Issue here is that he's not bound by company policy of smoking in a company vehicle, so he's free to smoke away.
- saulrh 11y agoIt'd be valuable for you to complain to Amazon when that happens. They probably can't get feedback on a service like this except through complaints like that.
- hmmdiggy 11y agoComplained several times but still occurs. I'm stuck in that guy's catchment area so always a high chance it's the same bloke.
- mikeash 11y agoThey'll probably get the idea if you start hitting them in the wallet. Any time the stuff you ordered smells of smoke, return it as having been damaged in transit (it's true!) and they should catch on pretty fast.
- bb101 11y agoExternalizing the parking fines. Clever.
- user24 11y agoAnd fuel, and vehicle maintenance, and maybe the personal liability insurance.
- barrkel 11y agoIndeed; in the UK, you need courier insurance to be a delivery driver. If you're just Joe Public doing Amazon deliveries, you are potentially driving without insurance.
- caskance 11y agoIf you're just Joe Public doing Amazon deliveries, you can also break the speed limit or park illegally in order to make your deliveries. How is that any different from not being properly insured? It's the courier's responsibility to not do those things. The most Amazon can do is to not work with people they know break the law.
- barrkel 11y agoIllegal parking is a civil offense, and you're not likely to speed enough to get banned, whereas driving without insurance is a pretty serious criminal offense and will make it much more expensive to get insurance in the future.
- dragonwriter 11y ago> The most Amazon can do is to not work with people they know break the law. Actually, Amazon can do more than that -- e.g., require up-front proof of appropriate insurance.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
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- brianbreslin 11y agoWhen amazon prime now launched in miami, they were using a temp agency to staff the drivers. Last time they brought me stuff in a city/euro-style-delivery van with amazon branding on it. I've also seen amazon branded shirts on delivery guys in their own cars too. Lots of delivery services will be competing for freelancers (Shyp, postmates, favor, amazon)
- eli 11y agoSounds a lot like LaserShip which Amazon already uses sometimes here on the east coast. Minimally trained people delivering last mile packages using their own vehicle. Results are.... mixed.
- cdubzzz 11y agoInteresting. I had no idea LaserShip was using that model. I have only ever seen branded trucks and assumed they were a UPS type of service. Ditto on the mixed results. Although they once delivered a package to us at like 9PM on a Sunday. Unfortunately it was nothing exciting, hah.
- jimkri 11y agoI had a package delivered by LaserShip last week. The experience was fine for me, it was delivered around noon without damage. A women delivered the package and was driving what seemed to be her personal mini-van with a sticker on the side.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ejdyksen 11y agoHere in Michigan, I've had quite a number of packages delivered by a company called Prestige. Similar thing: "independent contractors" using their own vehicles. Same mixed results.
- oh_sigh 11y agoI've had 5 packages in my life delivered by laser ship, and they fucked it up in various ways each time. I hate when I see a laser ship tracking number.
- JoblessWonder 11y agoWeird. We have a last mile shipper on the west coast they used to use called OnTrac and it seemed to work just fine. I'm not sure if they are still using them though since I think they have a contract with USPS now (even on Sundays).
- presty 11y agowill the customers be able to rate the deliverer à la uber?
- drglitch 11y agoI guess i was part of trials in Northern New Jersey - a random guy showed up in a beaten up car (i noticed because it had pretty nasty oil smoke coming out of the tailpipes, almost cartoon-like). He was wearing an "amazon now" t-shirt, but then after having me sign a delivery slip, stuck around awkwardly expecting a tip. Not a good experience.
- TheRealWatson 11y agoCan we agree already to not have to tip? I don't want Amazon to realize this money-saving practice at my expense. We don't tip UPS, we shouldn't tip these guys. Nobody tips me for pushing code to git.
- jlgaddis 11y agoThe trend nowadays seems to be for everyone to ask for tips. I guess I kinda understand as it costs them nothing to do so and they definitely don't lose anything (and only serve to gain) by asking / soliciting for tips.
- savanaly 11y agoThat only explains why they would solicit tips, not why they solicit tips more nowadays.
- ecdavis 11y agoThey don't lose anything in the short term, but look what tipping did to the restaurant industry in the long term. As tips become standard, businesses use them as a reason to keep wages low - in some cases lower than minimum wage.
- clarkmoody 11y agoBetter yet, put the tip in the app, with a notification that pops up after delivery asking you: * How would you rate the delivery experience? (multiple dimensions here) * Do you want to tip your courier?
- BrentOzar 11y agoIf they're launching now in major cities, I'm guessing drone deliveries aren't coming anytime soon. (Or this is insurance against the drone plan not working.)
- itg 11y agoThose delivery drones aren't happening unless there is a huge improvement in battery technology and there are a number of companies and labs working very hard on that problem, some for decades.
- slayed0 11y agoI don't think the drone plan was ever a serious short term consideration for 99.999% of Amazon's business
- BrentOzar 11y ago> I don't think the drone plan was ever a serious short term consideration for 99.999% of Amazon's business Right, but where would it be a serious short term consideration? Where's that .001%? If it's not in dense urban areas like Seattle and Chicago, I'm not sure where it would work, and those are the very areas where they're launching Flex.
- ceejayoz 11y ago> Right, but where would it be a serious short term consideration? Public relations.
- gregwtmtno 11y agoWe are the drones.
- sgustard 11y agoThe drone thing is a ways off; this is akin to Uber hiring drivers while working on driverless cars. The sad thing is the majority of jobs I hear about in the exciting new sharing economy are drivers and delivery people -- unskilled jobs that skilled engineers are furiously working on eliminating.
- 3pt14159 11y agoI'm surprised they aren't launching with cyclists too. Maybe they don't know the size of the backpack / basket that the delivery person has? I kinda just bike around Toronto for fun / exercise (up to 100kms in a day) and if I didn't have to alter my bike I could consider doing it. Plus it is faster in many parts of the city to bike than to take car or transit.
- Avalaxy 11y agoAside from that it seems like a horrible waste of non-renewal energy source to let someone drive to an address just to deliver one package.
- IkmoIkmo 11y agoI wonder... we know two things, one is that an electric motors can get around 90%+ efficiency. The human body I can't recall exactly but if I remember correctly it's centered around 20% or so for most exercises. Two is that 1 m2 of a solar panel converts around 15-20% of insolation to electricity, whereas 1 m2 of random plants gets about ±0.5%, most crops around 2% and the top performer is sugarcane which is still at just 8%. Typical diet however would probably be 2% efficient crops, a lot of which is then wasted before it gets on your plate, not in the least due to a lot of agricultural output going towards animals who turn it into 'meat-energy' in another inefficient process known as life with food-conversion rates of anywhere between 1.5 feed for 1 poultry, to up to 20 to 1 for cattle. Lastly while we have regeneration capacity in our feet when say running, when cycling downhill or breaking we regenerate nothing, whereas electric motors can have 20-40% electric regeneration efficiencies when going downhill or breaking. In short, electric bikes and likely small electric vehicles in general probably beat cycling in terms of energy. Of course this is a pretty narrow perspective. One can argue that solar panels and electric bicycles require massive investments which is an opportunity cost for other energy-efficient processes. One can argue that the cyclists fuelled by food will reduce their other activity (e.g. going to the gym) and thus don't expand any excess energy, or that most electric vehicles today wouldn't be powered by the sun, whereas the vast majority of food (excluding some greenhouses, hydroponics and pot installations) today is. But it's also pretty clear that powering the world with plants (excluding oil etc) doesn't make sense in the long run at significant scale.
- ehosca 11y agofinally as an amazon prime member i will be able to deliver packages to myself !!!!
- radmuzom 11y agoHow does the math work out on wages once you factor in the vehicle costs (gas, insurance, maintenance, etc...)? Is it higher than minimum wage?
- bmelton 11y agoIn America, generally speaking, if you're using a privately owned car for business, the companies pay a mileage rate, which is currently 57.5 cents per mile. That cost is expected to cover the cost of gas and maintenance on the vehicle. I don't know if Uber / Amazon actually DO this, but if so, that mileage fee would be on top of whatever their actual pay rate is.
- ousta 11y agocan't you remove this cost from taxes?
- bmelton 11y agoIf I'm understanding you correctly -- mileage rate pay is a business expense for which you are reimbursed, and aren't considered pay. They are (I believe) tax exempt.
- sib 11y agoYes, if you are not reimbursed for the expenses by your employer. In other words, you can either (1) be reimbursed by your employer or (2) deduct the per-mile rate from your taxes, but not both. Subject to certain conditions and limitations.
- mikeash 11y agoThat's far from universal. Companies can pay mileage, but nothing says they have to. To take a common example, pizza delivery drivers typically pay for all of their own transportation costs, sometimes with a small but insufficient delivery payment from their employer, and sometimes with nothing but a crappy hourly wage. That's why tipping is so important in that case: if you don't tip then it's likely the driver lost money on you, because they'll pay more for gas and maintenance on their car than they earned delivering to you without a tip. I don't think there's anything special about 57.5 cents per mile when it comes to compensating employees, either. That figure is the rate at which you can deduct vehicle-related expenses from your taxes, which doesn't have to be the same as how you compensate your employees. Uber doesn't pay any sort of mileage fee beyond the driver's 80% share. The driver can deduct 57.5 cents per mile driven for Uber on their taxes, thus reducing their tax liability.
- chloerei 11y agoLogo is a anger symbol?
- steve-benjamins 11y agoHeh, the scale of the people in the image is unfortunate: Smiling, small woman. Large imposing figure in a black jacket.
- cdnsteve 11y agoSo now you can be working for both Amazon and Uber all day!
- god_bless_texas 11y agoEvery time I see Amazon make an announcement, I'm reminded of this quote by Conan O'Brien: "Just remember kids, you can do anything you set your mind to, as long as Jay Leno doesn't also want to do it." Substitute Amazon for Jay Leno in that!
- shawnee_ 11y agoQ: Where can I deliver with Amazon Flex? A: Amazon Flex is available now in Seattle. It will be available soon in New York, Baltimore, Miami, Dallas, Austin, Chicago, Indianapolis, Atlanta and Portland. Smart move by Amazon to refrain from making any Bay-area city one of its test markets. It's like Amazon is saying "we don't need to prove this will work in the bubble; let's base our test data set on realistic markets."
- herge 11y agoAlso, gentrification and the rights of workers in a sharing economy are still hot-button political issues in the Bay-area. Who's going to picket Amazon Flex in Indianapolis?
- jlgaddis 11y agoI don't know about the Bay Area, but there's a huge Amazon distribution facility just outside of Indianapolis so I'm guessing there are similar facilities in/near each of the cities they're launching in.
- tlrobinson 11y agoConsidering the variety of items I can get delivered same day there must be a large distribution facility nearby. But maybe not near enough to support this (most same day deliveries come around 8pm for me)
- umanwizard 11y agoI don't think that's the reason - Amazon is incredibly unpopular in Seattle and anything they do there is certain to generate massive amounts of vitriol, so they wouldn't lose anything on that front by going to SF instead.
- LandoCalrissian 11y agoWhy are they so unpopular there?
- chrisBob 11y agoI see the appeal for people looking to work, but as a customer I strongly prefer UPS, FedEx or USPS. Last week I got a phone call: "Hi, are you home right now?" It turns out it was actually an Amazon Logistics delivery person, but that still isn't a question I really want to answer over the phone to some random person.
- jonlucc 11y agoWould you feel better if the person said "Hi, I work for UPS; are you home right now?"? There's no authentication built into the phone call. Perhaps Amazon should use their apps to facilitate that kind of communication with something like a push message?
- mindslight 11y agoUPS/Fedex/USPS have figured out how to reliably enter apartment buildings on their own (USPS uses a key, I presume UPS/Fedex use some numeric code convention). Amazon randos call you and make it your problem, as if they have never delivered a no-signature package before. Nearly every time I've used Amazon, they've surprised me with something crappy and I'm left wondering how they're so popular. Recently, they displayed a "guaranteed delivery by this day if you order within the next 45 seconds" on the checkout confirmation. I had been paying attention to the cutoff time and the time had just previously said 40 minutes. All the digging I did supported the conclusion that both times were a fictional dark pattern to drive order completion. Never mind the clingy stalker follow up spam when you price check an item outside of incognito mode.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 11y ago> they've surprised me with something crappy What are they surprising you with? I've done loads of orders with Amazon and it's basically always what I ordered. Once I got some cheap knockoffs, but was able to easily return it. That's out of a few hundred orders. As for the timeout stuff, they should definitely stop calling it a guarantee. Most of the time it's correct, and fairly often I'll get a package much quicker than it indicates, but I'd say about 10-15% of packages are later than the 2-day guarantee.
- martingordon 11y agoOne of the reasons I hesitate to use Amazon Now is that big "suggested tip" field. I don't tip the UPS delivery person, why should I tip my Amazon Now delivery person? What's been the norm for you all?
- jonesetc 11y agoDisclaimer: I have never used Amazon now, and don't see myself using it even though it is available to me. I also have no idea how the whole operation works before it leaves the warehouse. Does your UPS package get delivered in an hour? Do you tip a pizza delivery driver? Personally I think it depends on how much work the person doing the delivery did before the delivery to help get it done fast. So for food delivery, usually the drivers will not cook the food, but will put together the bag, double check everything, and add in any extras like sauces, utensils, rice, etc. So if the person for Amazon Now is the one putting the order together and double checking it before loading it into their car, I would think that they are more in line with food delivery than UPS drivers. Also something that takes away from how much I would give is that restaurants usually share some of the tips with in store workers who made the food. With that in mind I'd definitely tip less.
- dragonwriter 11y ago> Does your UPS package get delivered in an hour? If what you are paying for with Amazon Now is rapid delivery service, then why would you tip for the service you are paying for. UPS delivers in a time set by the level of service that is paid for. Presumably, Amazon Now does the same thing. > Do you tip a pizza delivery driver? I did before pizza parlors started adding an additional separate charge for delivery service, which signals that it is now service compris.
- robwilliams 11y agoYou don't tip your food delivery drivers? Are you in the US?
- djur 11y ago
- the_mitsuhiko 11y agoI like what the Austrian post started to do. You buy a post locker once, place it on the outside of your house/flat and the post starts putting packages in there and throws the one-time use pin into your mail.
- bluedino 11y agoThis is what the post office should be doing. We'll deliver your mail to wherever your phone is or you want it for that day. I hate buying something from someone online (eBay for instance) and then they ship USPS. If I can't let the mailman into my apartment they won't leave the packages. So then I end up having to sit in line at the post office on Saturday morning and hope they can find the package for me and pick it up.
- cphoover 11y agoGreat now amazon get's to screw it's contractors out of benefits! Good for them!
- biftek 11y agoI'm really curious to see if Amazon will face similar local government push back like Uber has.
- dankohn1 11y agoThis is a big step for Amazon, and one that I can imagine them eventually offering as a service to other companies that need to provide real-time delivery. And, $18 to $25 an hour represents close to a livable wage, although less than it seems once you take into account depreciation of your personal automobile (which is why the future transit and bike options are particularly intriguing.) But, it also calls out the need for government programs to stop assuming that workers will have a single long-term employer. Obamacare already started this process. We should be developing analogous policies for sick leave, family leave, and retirement savings that are decoupled from your employer. Nick Hanauer has done good work thinking about what these programs will need to look like: http://www.businessinsider.com/americans-need-a-new-social-contract-for-the-sharing-economy-2015-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/americans-need-a-new-social-c...
- ihsw 11y ago> although less than it seems once you take into account depreciation of your personal automobile (which is why the future transit and bike options are particularly intriguing.) Vehicles depreciate a fair bit when they roll straight out of the parking lot. Vehicles depreciate over time staying parked in your drive way/garage. Racking up miles on the odometer will definitely inflict wear and tear, especially in wintery climates (read: salt water corrosion), but depreciation will occur regardless. Where do most personal vehicles end up? Does everybody resell to dealerships or friends/ family/ co-workers/ random people on Craigslist? Most people have accepted that the resale value a vehicle will be significantly lower than the purchase price, and honestly I think depreciation should be the least of our concerns. And with regards for sick leave, family leave, and retirement savings that are decoupled from the employer -- look outside of the US and you will find it.
- dankohn1 11y ago> I think depreciation should be the least of our concerns Here is a superb article showing that depreciation (and fuel) costs 19% of an Uber driver's pay: http://citypaper.net/uberdriver/ http://citypaper.net/uberdriver/ So, that's $14.58 to $20.25 instead of $18 to $25.
- thedogeye 11y agoAmazon might be smart enough to deliver packages in the evenings when people are home, something FedEx and UPS just can't quite get their heads around.
- rtkwe 11y agoI've gotten a few deliveries in the evening, mostly next day deliveries though where they probably didn't get the package at the local UPS hub until the afternoon. To deliver in the evenings on a large scale they'd have to compress the work they do in the 8-9 hours of the normal working day (more in some cases where they do actually deliver in the evenings giving them almost 12 hours of delivery time) into the ~3 hours between 6-9 (starting at 6 because who actually gets home at 5 with commute times). All that goes to say if you want evening deliveries you're going to have to a lot pay more for deliveries just because it will require a lot more drivers (who will want better pay for working evening when they'd otherwise be home).
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- FollowSteph3 11y agoWhat happens if you get in a car accident delivering Amazon packages and don't have commercial car insurance as I suspect most people don't have not realize they need...
- chrisBob 11y agoI think Uber deals with this by having an insurance policy that covers the workers while they are on duty. I am sure Amazon will do something similar.
- IkmoIkmo 11y agoI wonder how long it'll take for an online thievery marketplace will pop-up selling Amazon Flex delivery data. For example, if you know you delivered a $10k gold apple watch (hypothetically), I can bet you that a local thief would pay you at least $100 for you to tell him which house it was delivered to. In fact, my neighbour's home was broken into last year. Turns out (unbeknownst to us), he apparently had a safe in his home with nearly half a million in value (watches, diamonds etc. Huge surprise to us because we know him as a chubby, nerdy government worker who drives an electric bicycle to work, never would've expected him to have some kind of tony montana thing going on in his house haha). Anyway so we spoke to him and the police after and apparently a small crew broke into his home and went straight for the safe with specialised equipment, i.e. they knew exactly where to go and someone had told them, and they made a massive, massive haul. Imagine you worked at Amazon Flex and delivered a rolex, that's valuable information. Anyway there are the usual problems with this that you see at eBay or the SR (how do you escrow payments on what obviously must be an illegal online service with anonymous owners, and if you don't have escrow how do you establish trust between merchant and buyer), added to the fact it's pretty easy for the police to trace it back to a delivery man if it happens often enough. Anyway wouldn't be surprised to see it happen within a few years.
- mseebach 11y agoI've never received an Amazon package that listed its contents on the outside. The reason for this appears fairly obvious.
- garyrichardson 11y agoAlso, in what world are people casually priming a new rolex? I see it as either: - a stretch luxury purchase for the average person -- I'm going to expect white glove service from a high end jeweller. Or possibly a shady Craigslist deal. - a 1%er is going to send their personal shopper to pick it out and bring it to them
- tomschlick 11y agoBut if you're delivering on the product launch day and you've delivered 20 of the same shape/size/weight with the same sender information (no matter how obscure) it would be easy to infer.
- jbapple 11y agoGiven that Amazon warehouse jobs include working unpaid time[0] and the standard practice of employers inflating per-hour rate expectations for piecework jobs, I am dubious of the "$18–25/hr" claim. 0: See INTEGRITY STAFFING SOLUTIONS, INC. v. BUSK, http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/13-433_5h26.pdf http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/13-433_5h26.pdf
- crymer11 11y agoInteresting that they're requiring you to have an Android phone. I wonder if there are any specific reasons they're excluding iOS.
- bb101 11y agoAmazon can probably control provisioning through their Amazon Appstore (which is Android-only).
- chenster 11y agoOnce Amazon is in this space, it means game over for other similar services.
- darkstar999 11y agoWhat?? Amazon has major competition with all of their products.
- soci 11y agoIn Barcelona (Europe) we have at least two startups in this space: glovoapp.com and www.stuart.fr Stuart has not released yet but are hiring quite agressively[1]. I don't think Amazon entering this space means they are dead but quite the opposity. If FLEX enters the European market will make the concierge delivery space grow. And this can only be good for competition. [1]http://www.jobsbcn.com/?q=stuart http://www.jobsbcn.com/?q=stuart
- Semiapies 11y agoI'm just glad nobody's complaining that this has the same name as a dead Adobe product.
- packetized 11y agoI notice no cities in California - a simple way of avoiding the pitfalls of having the reclassify contractors?
- tzury 11y agoPerfect additional income for Uber driver, persons in the back seat, Amazon packages in the trunk.
- luizgrp 11y agocan I use my own drone to deliver packages? :)
- scanr 11y agoThis will be amazing for the 3rd world, if it works, as postal services are notoriously ineffective and there's now way to overlay a trust model on them.
- devonoel 11y agoBring this shit to Toronto and I'll do it on the weekends for extra dosh, no problem.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- slr555 11y agoAmazon can't even effectively manage their second tier delivery vendors like Lasership in NYC. They dump packages in unsecured areas (I had one stolen last week). They scan packages as delivered to make their SLA with Amazon and then deliver after 9pm. And now Amazon thinks some random folks with cars are going to do great delivering merchandise in one of the country's most congested urban areas. Maybe bricks and mortar aren't so bad after all.
- samstave 11y agoThis sounds like a problem with Lasership -- not Amazon...
- massysett 11y agoSince Amazon is using Lasership rather than a higher-priced, more competent carrier, it's Amazon's problem. It will certainly be Amazon's problem when their customers switch to competitors because Amazon is cheaping out and using Lasership.
- mrmondo 11y agoI don't think that "$18-25/hr" is "Great Pay"
- randyrand 11y ago...not everyone gets to be a high paid programmer, dude.
- mrmondo 11y agoI'm not a high paid programmer, but Amazon making a statement like that actually makes things worse, not better by normalising / promoting low income rates as 'Great'.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 11y agoConsidering about half the US population makes less than that, I think you're perspective might be a little warped. http://horizoncu.onyourway.com/62-of-american-jobs-pay-less-than-20-per-hour-how-should-young-adults-react/ http://horizoncu.onyourway.com/62-of-american-jobs-pay-less-... That's a solid job to most people. Granted, issues like benefits, hours, and whether you really make that much are in doubt, but those numbers are certainly something to hang your hat on. My guess is that those are estimates including tips, so the reality would be lower for many.
- dragonwriter 11y ago> I don't think that "$18-25/hr" is "Great Pay" For a job with little educational background, fairly free ability to set your own schedule, etc., its fairly good (even with the additional cost overhead that comes with independent contract work, as I assume is the case here.) For most of the people on HN, sure, its pretty horrible pay compared to their alternatives, but HN isn't exactly the target audience.
- shire 11y agoSo $18-$25 an hour plus tips. To drive maybe 24miles or more per trip not sure and on top of that considering car expense you'd have to pay driving that many miles, gas oil-change maybe tire problems or engine problems driving that far distances everyday could really start to add up.