Yep, Amazon Home Delivery is Here

In Gainesville, at least.

A week or so ago, a package arrived -- and instead of a US Postal Service truck pulling into my yard, it was a van marked "Amazon."

I had seen a couple of these vans in parking spaces in town, and had seen a news story saying that Amazon was opening both a local warehouse operation and a local delivery operation. But both of those things were several months ago, and I was wondering when it would come to fruition. Obviously, it has.

I talked briefly with the driver. She said she liked the job better than her previous desk job, that the money was pretty good, etc.

Gainesville isn't a huge city (~130,000). I don't know if that means Amazon "last mile" delivery is a finished product that has just now penetrated that far down in terms of city size, or if Gainesville is an experimental/pilot area for the idea. I suspect it's a good city for Amazon what with the large university presence and tech hub aspirations. If I had to guess, I'd guess the area buys more from Amazon per capita than average.

In any case, we have it pretty good here vis a vis Amazon. Two-day delivery almost always means exactly that. A Whole Foods went in last year, and they have "Amazon lockers" -- if you have a porch pirate problem in your neighborhood, you can just pick your package up at Whole Foods instead of having it left on your porch while you're out and the house is empty.

I'll be interested to see how this plays out vis a vis US Snail. Trump did a bit of belly-aching that Amazon was receiving a "subsidy" from the Postal Service, while both Amazon and USPS replied that no, USPS turns a profit delivering for  Amazon. If Trump was right, I suspect Amazon wouldn't be in such a hurry to take over its own local delivery operations.