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Comment by hhs | Hacker News Reader

This title is a bit misleading.

FedEx is only dropping their Express business. As cited in the link, they note, “FedEx has made the strategic decision to not renew the FedEx Express U.S. domestic contract with Amazon.com, Inc. as we focus on serving the broader e-commerce market. This decision does not impact any existing contracts between Amazon.com and other FedEx business units or relating to international services.”

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That doesn't really clarify anything (for me)... What are the other business units? I've never gotten a Fedex Home Delivery pacakge from Amazon, are there other Fedex business units that ship for AWS?

FedEx Ground is a completely separate business from FedEx Express/Air.

Different trucks for the last mile(s), even.

Likely their bulk freight unit is also separate.

Boggles my mind why they’d have different last mile trucks. How could that be better?

No idea. UPS doesn't work that way. As a small biz, I went with UPS because I didn't want to deal with separate air and ground pickups.

Depends on how much time/trouble it would be to consolidate in time for that last mile. You could expend more effort combining things, than you would save in just doing the last mile in separate trucks.

I'm not saying this IS true, I don't know. Just that it is logically possible. Combining two different systems for a last mile delivery is not trivial.

It might make it easier to deal with FedEx packages that have to be delivered really early, early, and the like.

The sorting centers are completely different, since the methods of backbone transit are separate. Express only goes via airports (except for regional city pairs like L.A. to San Francisco). Home/Ground only goes by road/train, so you'd have to consolidate somewhere in between. Also, a significant fraction of the Express traffic is stuff that is time-sensitive delivery. Things like getting signed paperwork so people can buy houses. They really hate delays. In fact, if you spring for the "priority overnight" they'll send a driver to your door with a blank waybill and envelope, and wait while you fill it out. It's quite a different service than Ground/Home.

"Green" FedEx is ground, which was an acquisition a long time ago. It's an all-ground service that uses trains and contract delivery carriers with FedEx livery. Slow and cheap. If you look at the door of the truck it will tell you who owns it.

The "Red" one is Fedex Express -- overnight, 2-day and 3-day service. Most people think of "Express" FedEx.

Freight is red. Express is orange.

I worked for Freight for seven years. FedEx Freight red is #FF0033 :)

Ok, we've changed the title back to what the page says. Submitted title was "Fedex drops Amazon".

I imagine Express is where Amazon was leaning the hardest on Fedex, to avoid losing too much blood on each Prime shipment.

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