For the first time, Amazon will be exhibiting at Transpotec to present Amazon Relay, the portal on which small and medium-sized couriers can register to access thousands of possible transports throughout Europe, free of charge and without minimum loading requirements.

The application offers both the location of the warehouse from which to pick up the goods, and the authorization to access the loading sites. This means that the incoming truck is registered and able to receive directly via app instructions on how to deliver or pick up the load at the Amazon site.

How does it work? A courier can select a load that fits its needs from the shipments table, or provide its loading capacity on the portal itself indicating the required rate for a transport. If the shipments table has a suitable offer for the request, the courier will receive an immediate notification and can decide whether to accept it or not.

All loads offered are handled exclusively by Amazon Transportation Services, without other contractual partners. Since we are talking about thousands of shipments within the European logistics network of the American company, the various offers will have different routes and distances so as to allow couriers of any size to select a load that suits their needs, thus avoiding empty trips and mitigating the environmental impact. All shipments offered on Relay are full loads (FTL) from warehouses pertaining to Amazon's Italian and European network and contain parcels to be delivered to customers or that are needed for inventory balancing. Employees registered on Relay can only transport non-refrigerated goods. The transportation requires a classic semi-trailer, tarpaulin or van, with the packages being stacked on pallets and loaded.

In order to register on Amazon Relay, a transportation company must have its own fleet of vehicles, whether proprietary or hired, a valid international freight license (EU license) or a national license, a valid freight insurance (CMR - carrier insurance) and an insurance covering all the vehicles. The entire registration process can be done digitally and in multiple languages, with a dedicated team following each participant through the registration and management process.