Amazon says USPS ‘walked away at the eleventh hour’ in negotiations

Amazon Referring to his business relationship with the U.S. Postal Service, he said Wednesday: in a blog post He said contract renewal talks with the carrier ended in December when the Postal Service “abruptly left at the eleventh hour.”

Comments came later several outlets reported It was reported Tuesday that Amazon plans to sharply reduce the number of packages it ships through the Postal Service after the two failed to reach an agreement.

The company, long the postal service’s largest customer, reportedly aims to reduce Postal Service volumes by at least two-thirds when its contract expires at the end of September.

“Until USPS suddenly disappeared at the eleventh hour of December, our goal was to increase, not reduce, our volumes with USPS,” Amazon said.

Amazon said it had been negotiating with the Postal Service for more than a year to reach a new, long-term deal before talks collapsed. He said the carrier has since submitted a bid as part of the new auction process “with the hope of continuing our partnership even at a low level.”

“We have repeatedly requested to meet with the Postmaster General [David] “We want Steiner to work on a solution,” Amazon said. “We want to find a path forward, but that window is closing quickly.”

Postal Service representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Postal service in December announced A new last-mile “request for proposal platform” that is said to be able to generate billions of dollars in revenue and help make the Postal Service “a more financially viable institution.”

Steiner testified on Tuesday a hearing Before the House Oversight subcommittee on the financial future of the Postal Service. He said the mail carrier was at a “critical point” and warned it would run out of cash in less than 12 months without help from Congress.

Steiner he told Reuters He said in December that Amazon uses the Postal Service 1.7 billion times a year to process packages, and that the company “wouldn’t be what it is today” without the service.

Over the past decade, Amazon has built a sprawling logistics and fulfillment operation that allows it to handle more of its own deliveries and reduce its reliance on outside carriers like the Postal Service. Fedex or POWER SUPPLY.

In addition to thousands of last-mile delivery companies delivering packages to Amazon alone, it also operates a burgeoning network of planes, trucks, and ships. It has also equipped the country with warehouses and air hubs that can speed packages through.

The company has recently set its sights on expanding deliveries to small towns in rural America, which are often handled by the Postal Service because they are more expensive and less congested than urban areas.

Amazon last year committed to spending nearly $4 billion by the end of 2026 to triple the size of its rural distribution network.

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