Amazon to tap small Aussie businesses for last-mile deliveries

Retail giant Amazon is planning to recruit “a handful” of entrepreneurs to expand its delivery network in Australia’s three largest cities.

The US firm announced plans to introduce its Delivery Service Partner program in the country on Friday, in a move that will see it join with small businesses operating 20 to 40 vehicles and employing dozens of local drivers.

The move comes five years after Amazon launched the program in the US and just weeks after the company expanded its one-day delivery service to seven Australian cities.

But Amazon’s Australian partnership program will not use electric delivery vans, like those in the US, even though it is on the company’s future “road map”.

Amazon executive Beryl Tomay told AAP the company would launch its Delivery Service Partner program in Australia to expand its network and support growing customer demand.

“This year we’re looking for a handful (of partners) in the three cities, Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, and we’re going to go from there,” she said.

“We’re going to start smaller and built out from there.”

Small logistics firms interested in partnering with the company would be required to operate a fleet of up to 40 vehicles, she said, and would be offered training, technology and discounted access to vehicles, insurance and payroll services.

Amazon currently uses 3500 delivery partners in 19 countries.

Tomay said the vehicles offered to partners through the program would be co-branded with the Amazon logo but the company had yet to partner with an electric vehicle manufacturer in Australia as it had done elsewhere.

“In the US, through our partnership with Rivian, we have over 10,000 electric vehicles delivery packages with a goal to get to 100,000 by 2030,” she said.

“In Australia, this is on our road map too so, in the fullness of time, we will begin doing that.”

Tomay said the company’s new program would extend its delivery network options in Australia, which would also include new delivery stations in Brisbane and Sydney this year, as well as individual delivery drivers hired through Amazon Flex.