Amazon Expands Trucking Program to Europe

Bogged down by ballooning shipping costs at home and abroad, Amazon is looking to rapidly increase the number of small trucking companies that haul its goods around Europe.

The internet retailer is expanding a little-known program called Amazon Freight Partner to Germany, Spain, Poland, France and Italy, and aims to train hundreds of would-be entrepreneurs in those countries to launch their own trucking businesses exclusively transporting freight for Amazon, The Information has learned. Amazon planned to roll out the program in those countries by the end of 2021, according to an internal company document from earlier this year viewed by The Information.

Amazon has already publicly launched the program in Germany, the company’s second-largest market, but a rollout of the program in the other countries is still in the works, according to a current Amazon employee familiar with the program.