“[The move by Amazon] escalated labour cost [in the industry]. [And because we have] long-term contracts with a lot of our customers, we cannot pass much of that labour cost increase on, which squeezed our margins,” says Paul Coutts, the CEO brought in to turn the ailing postal company around in 2017. In particular, he was tasked with fixing its loss-making e-commerce and logistics operations in the US.
SINGAPORE (June 24): Singapore Post’s dream to transform into an e-commerce play in the US came to an end when Amazon.com turned up at its door, literally.
In May, Amazon held a groundbreaking ceremony for its US$1.5 billion ($2.05 billion) logistics superhub in Cincinnati, promising to reduce the company’s reliance on third-party providers. The air hub, scheduled to open in 2021, is less than an hour’s drive from SingPost’s e-commerce and logistics subsidiary, TradeGlobal.
