Amazon trucking expansion sparks freight stock sell-off

Shares of many major shipping companies fell on Wednesday Amazon announced It also opens its trucking services to companies outside its network.

The e-retailer said it will offer less-than-truckload shipping services to all businesses, not just those that ship goods to its warehouses and fulfillment centers and deliver to any destination in the U.S., as part of its nascent Amazon Supply Chain Services program.

Less-than-truckload refers to a service where companies transport shipments from multiple customers on a single trailer, rather than a full truckload from a single customer.

Old Dominion Freight LineWhile its shares lost more than 6% of their value, ArcBest fell 4 percent. Saia And XPO Logistics each fell by 5%. shares FedEx ShippingBitcoin, which began trading earlier this month after being transferred by FedEx, is down nearly 3%.

Amazon has built a logistics empire over the past few years, largely reducing its reliance on outside carriers to meet its own needs and accommodate ever-increasing shipping speeds. This includes a fleet of Amazon-branded cargo planes, tens of thousands of delivery vans, and a growing shipping service that includes 80,000 trailers and 24,000 containers.

“The feedback from Amazon affiliates using our LTL service was clear: the technology, visibility and reliability were exactly what they needed, and they wanted to use it more broadly,” Jim Ruiz, director of Amazon Freight, said in a statement. “Now Amazon LTL can move your freight where it needs to go and serve destinations nationwide for businesses of all sizes.”

Amazon poses a growing threat to established companies in the industry by making many of its in-house logistics offerings available to others.

Last month Amazon announced an “end-to-end” project supply chain service It combines many of its logistics and shipping offerings into one package. Shares of rival carriers were also included in the announcement POWER SUPPLY And Fedex lower.