Here’s Kim’s description of the application the company’s planning, according to his sources:
The app will offer real-time pricing and driving directions, as well as personalized features such as truck-stop recommendations and a suggested “tour” of loads to pick up and drop off. It could also have tracking and payment options to speed up the entire shipping process.
Kim’s also written a good piece connecting some of the news dots around what he sees as Amazon’s moves in recent times to become a transportation provider itself, from trailer purchases, cargo plane leases, expansion of its distribution-center network and more. The app would appear to be of a piece with such, and if past statements from the company are any indication, the app might well start with freight from within Amazon’s own network before opening up to outside shippers and/or brokers and competing more directly with others.
That, of course, could open new opportunities to independents who don’t move loads to or from the company today. Kim’s sources suggested a summer 2017 release was hoped for. We’ll see.
Thoughts?