Amazon’s Dave Clark highlights the features of the new Amazon Flex. The service let’s people sign up for one-hour delivery gigs through an app. Photo: Amazon
Starting Tuesday in the city of Seattle — Amazon’s home base — the online electronic commerce company will begin paying independent delivery people “$18-25 per hour” to deliver Amazon Prime Now packages out of their own cars.
The program is known as “Amazon Flex” and is sort of package delivery version of the Uber network people transportation company. After Seattle, the service will eventually launch in a number of major markets, including Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Indianapolis, Miami, New York, Portland. These are the cities of major Amazon Prime Now markets, excluding cities in California.
According to the Flex program’s site, participating delivery people must own cars, have valid drivers’ licenses, be over the age of 21, pass a background check, and own an Android smartphone. Currently packages cannot be delivered via bike or on foot.
Hired drivers will use Amazon’s proprietary delivery app, which they can use to choose delivery shifts as short as two hours or as long as 12. People will choose a block area and are assigned a nearby location to pick up packages that must then be delivered in a local radius that is based on the delivery person’s chosen delivery block size. Delivery quantity is based on the length of of the person’s shift.
See the official amazon FLEX page here …
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