Amazon’s LTL offering reaching out to shippers as possible customers: report

By contrast, in a recent announcement by privately-held Estes, the company said it was adding new terminal doors to a network that was more than 300 terminals. 

Morgan Stanley said it would be looking for further information, such as whether the terminals will be new, operate as a crossdock or are more extensive in their services.

11% have heard from Amazon

In its report, Morgan Stanley said it had surveyed 87 shippers, and 11% of them “have already been approached by Amazon regarding LTL services.”

“At this early stage of Amazon’s LTL push, 11% penetration is reasonably high, in our view,” Morgan Stanley added.

That Amazon was looking at expanding into LTL freight is not new. In April, it was reported that Amazon had launched an inbound-only service, where it would take LTL goods into an Amazon facility that would then deliver them through their regular parcel delivery service.

Amazon confirmed the service at the time. However, an email sent by FreightWaves to Amazon on the disclosures by Morgan Stanley had not been responded to by publication time.

“While 89% have not yet been contacted, the data suggest Amazon is selectively targeting shippers rather than pursuing a broad-based outreach,” Morgan Stanley said in its report. “Importantly, even without widespread engagement, there is still a decent amount of interest as nearly 60% of respondents would at least consider Amazon for LTL under the right conditions (service, price, or network), while ~40% say they would not consider it at all.”

Customer base would mostly be new

Of those surveyed, Morgan Stanley said about 81% of those shippers do not use Amazon for any other services, “reinforcing that Amazon’s LTL efforts are largely a new point of entry rather than an extension of existing carrier relationships.”

As Morgan Stanley notes, Amazon already has a truckload service offering. 

“Taken together, these results suggest Amazon’s LTL initiative is still nascent but already visible in the market, with early outreach levels that are significant relative to the maturity of the offering,” the report said.

Amazon LTL will “represent a risk to incumbent LTLs,” the investment bank wrote.

Last year, in a research report, J.P. Morgan analyst Brian Ossenbeck said of publicly-traded LTL stocks that the “most obvious” risk for those companies “if (the Amazon) service launches for external users at some point in 2026 as it is pretty much impossible to put that disruptive idea back in the box.”

“The most obvious risk for LTL stocks is if this service launches for external users at some point in 2026 as it is pretty much impossible to put that disruptive idea back in the box,” Ossenbeck notes. 

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