The distribution network of Amazon and the footprint of freight digitalization

Abstract

The emergence of e-commerce as a dominant retail paradigm is associated with a rapid shift in the commercial footprint towards distributional-based consumption. Through the analysis of the geographical expansion, market coverage, and functional specialization of Amazon's distribution network, the research underlines that digitalization has a pronounced physicality. E-commerce is favoring a transition from the conventional retail freight landscape towards a new physicality of freight distributions involving purpose-designed facilities, modes, and channels. The case of Amazon underlines a consistent locational behavior to achieve a distributional hierarchy of facilities granting logistical access to consumer markets. The distributional hierarchy is organized in three stages, which are procurement and fulfillment, distribution, and last-mile.