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Today’s Pickup: Your office mailroom isn’t celebrating Prime Day

(Photo credit: Amazon)

Good Day,

With the end of Amazon’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) Prime Day sales event this morning, workplaces can brace for a surge in deliveries. 

Yahoo News reported on research from the firm Envoy showing deliveries increased by 30 percent on the Thursday after Prime Day in 2018, compared to other Thursdays in July.

“It’s significant, and it’s unbelievable. Just after these kinds of events… people just love buying online, and they love a deal. And they will absolutely ship it to wherever they can pick it up,” Larry Gadea, Envoy CEO Larry Gadea told Yahoo News.


Envoy, which makes package and visitor management tools, noted that the increase in packages taxes office staff, who have to keep track of the parcels. 

Worse yet, more than 54 percent of employees didn’t retrieve their packages on the day of the arrival in 2018. One-third waited at least two days. 

This year’s delivery surge likely will be larger. Amazon’s Prime Day began on July 15 and lasted a full 48 hours.

Did you know?

Owner-operator truck drivers earn on average 5 percent more per hour, or $1,900 more per year than those employed by a company, according to an analysis from Convoy of U.S. Census Data. 


Quotable:

“It’s a huge dice roll.”

Michael Easparam, chief lighting designer at Solid Rock Live, on the prospect of a driver running out of hours before reaching a show venue. Read more about the logistics of concerts in the latest installment of Freight All Kinds.

In Other News:

U.S. bill would require automatic braking systems 

Legislation introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on July 16 aims to reduce serious highway crashes involving trucks by requiring automatic braking and forward-collision warning systems. (Kansas City Star)

Some reforms elusive six years after train explosion killed 47 in Quebec

Despite changes made after a runaway train explosion killed 47 people in a Quebec town, dangerous cargo still regularly travels through Canadian urban centers by rail. (New York Times)

IAC makes $250 million bet on car-sharing company Turo

IAC has invested $250 million in Turo, which provides peer-to-peer car-sharing. (CNBC)


Robots assist employees at new fulfillment center

Quiet Logistics has opened a new fulfillment center near Los Angeles where 500 employees will work alongside autonomous mobile robots. (PR Newswire)

Turkish Cargo flies vulture to Serbia 

Turkish Cargo flew an unwell endangered griffon vulture back to Serbia. The bird was discovered nearly 1,000 miles into its annual eastern migration from Serbia. (Air Cargo News)

Final Thoughts:

The report on how Prime Day deliveries affect workplaces should remind us that our e-commerce orders don’t happen in a bubble. While it may be convenient to have 48 rolls of toilet paper sent to your office, the person at the front desk may disagree.

Hammer down everyone!

Nate Tabak

Nate Tabak is a Toronto-based journalist and producer who covers cybersecurity and cross-border trucking and logistics for FreightWaves. He spent seven years reporting stories in the Balkans and Eastern Europe as a reporter, producer and editor based in Kosovo. He previously worked at newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the San Jose Mercury News. He graduated from UC Berkeley, where he studied the history of American policing. Contact Nate at [email protected].