It’s no secret that Amazon has been building out its domestic and global logistics capabilities, from operating more than 80 cargo aircraft - operating in part out of a new $1.5 billion air hub near Cincinnati - to moving products for its marketplace customers on ocean ships from Asia it controls.

Supply Chain Digest Says...   “By consolidating the whole range of logistics services into one package, the one-stop shops promise to boost efficiency and lower prices,” Quartz noted.     What do you say?   Click here to send us your comments       Click here to see reader feedback

In 2016, Amazon’s Chinese logistics arm registered as an ocean freight forwarder in both the US and China.

And Amazon is slowly but surely offering to take over shipping for non-Amazon freight, leveraging its growing network.

The goal: be able to connect factories in Asia all the way to consumer homes in the US and Europe.

The discussion of Amazon’s logistics plans usually revolves its growing competition with UPS and FedEx.

But maybe the biggest competitive challenger to Amazon’s ambitions is going to come from a totally different direction: Danish ocean container shipping giant Maersk line.

Maersk actually announced its strategy all the way back in 2016, with a strategic shift to become an end-to-end global logistics provider.

This “emerging rivalry is creating this battle between these two very different beasts that will probably come to a head at some point in the next couple of years,” according to Eytan Buchman, an executive at freight booking platform Freightos in columns he has written on Maersk’s pivot to a complete logistics service provider.

Ironically, Maersk made the strategic switch because of the terrible economics of the container shipping industry at the time, with supply far exceeding demands, and rates barely if at all above variable costs to operate a ship. Red ink bled all across the container shpping sector.

Of course, in the past 18 months or so those economics have totally changed, with soaring rates and huge profits for container shipping lines. But what that has done is enable Maersk to pursue a number of acquisitions using its cash hoard.

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According to the Quart.com web site, Maersk has been expanding its fleets of trucks and cargo planes, and acquired five logistics companies in the past three years. That includes two customs brokerages (Vandegrift and KGH Customs) and two ecommerce fulfillment companies (Visible SCM and B2C Europe Holding).

In November 2021, Maersk bought the freight forwarder Senator International. And that is really interesting, because the traditional role of a forwarder is to act as a middleman to connect shippers with freight carriers, and manage all the complexities of international shipping processes.

It appears Maersk wants to cut out the middlemen and offer forwarding services directly to shippers, Quartz.com says, probably as part of a total global shipping service. As part of that strategy, a few years ago Maersk launched a new service on its web site that enables small and mid-sized companies to book space on Maersk container ships or planes directly, eliminating the need for a separate forwarder.

Quartz adds that “The acquisitions expand Maersk’s ability to bring its clients’ cargo off Maersk ships, get it through customs, transport it to regional warehouses, and eventually deliver it directly to customers’ doors on behalf of clients."

And that of course sounds a lot like what Amazon is pursuing in building out its global logistics capabilities.

These strategies by each company may not succeed, and other companies will enter the Fray.

Quartz notes that the giant global logistics industry will almost certainly will not turn out to be an Amazon-Maersk duopoly. But the efforts of those two companies could change the nature of the competition.

“By consolidating the whole range of logistics services into one package, the one-stop shops promise to boost efficiency and lower prices,” Quartz noted.

But there is a downside of this too.

“The businesses that outsource their logistics to Amazon or Maersk will have much less flexibility to shape their own supply chains,” Quartz warns.

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