Nobody's Safe This Week

Yesterday was a brutal day to own transportation stocks.

FedEx fell as much as 10%, its worst single-day drop in over a year. UPS fell a similar amount. GXO and Forward Air both shed double digits. The S&P 500 Transportation Index, which had been flirting with all-time highs recently after recovering from Iran-war jitters, got absolutely taken apart.

The trigger: Amazon announced it is opening its logistics network to outside businesses.

Not just Amazon sellers. Everyone. Any company can now access Amazon's warehousing, freight, and parcel delivery infrastructure as a standalone service, even if they have no relationship with Amazon's marketplace whatsoever.

Companies like Procter & Gamble, 3M, Lands’ End, and American Eagle Outfitters are already using Amazon's Supply Chain Services (ASCS - we love acronyms in logistics).

Amazon has been building this network for over a decade, primarily to serve its own e-commerce operation. It now delivers more than a quarter of all parcels shipped in the U.S. every year. FedEx and UPS combined move about a third. The difference is that Amazon built all of that capacity at a cost basis no one else can match, because it was subsidized by one of the most profitable businesses in the world.

Now it's selling access to that capacity as a product.

This is the part that should genuinely concern 3PL operators. Amazon isn't just offering warehouse space and delivery trucks. It is selling access to its proprietary AI forecasting models. That means a brand like Lands' End can use Amazon's system to position inventory closer to customers before those customers even click buy. Predictive fulfillment, at scale, built on years of purchase data that no 3PL on earth has access to. Most 3PLs are still working with brands to react to demand. Amazon is selling the ability to get ahead of it.

The reason the market reacted so hard is that this directly threatens the strategy UPS and FedEx have been betting on. Both carriers spent the last few years deliberately walking away from low-margin Amazon volume and repositioning around premium segments: healthcare, SMB, B2B. The idea was that lower volume at higher margins was better than higher volume at thin margins. That logic held up well until Amazon decided to follow them into those same premium segments, which it has now announced it is doing.

LTL carriers like Old Dominion are somewhat more protected. Amazon isn't going to build the kind of hub-and-spoke terminal networks required to move freight at that weight class anytime soon. 3PLs and freight brokers are in a more difficult spot because Amazon's scale and data give it advantages in exactly the kinds of services they provide.

The selloff was probably overdone on a one-day basis. Amazon has announced things before that took years to fully materialize, and execution on new service lines is never guaranteed. But the market wasn't reacting to a press release. It was reacting to a direction that had been obvious for years, finally becoming impossible to ignore.

What this means for you: If your value proposition is moving boxes efficiently, you are now competing with a provider that treats logistics as a loss leader for its cloud and advertising business. Amazon doesn't need to make money on fulfillment. It makes money when brands sell more, which they do when inventory is in the right place at the right time. Your moat in 2026 has to be the things that don't fit into Amazon's standardized, automated bins: kitting, custom packaging, complex inspections, and high-touch, specialized services that require human judgment and brand-specific knowledge. That's where Amazon's model breaks down. That's where yours has to be unbeatable.

The first item ever sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer. Pierre Omidyar listed it in 1995 to test whether internet auctions could even work. Someone paid $14.83. From that start, eBay grew to nearly $80 billion in value by 2005, roughly four times Amazon's value at the time.

Then it slowly lost relevance. Customers drifted to bigger marketplaces and specialized platforms. And for a while, it kinda felt like eBay was dying out.

Well, eBay just reported Q1 sales growth of 17% year-over-year, the fastest pace since 2012 outside of the pandemic spike. Gross merchandise volume climbed 18%. The buyer base, which had been in steady decline, has stabilized at around 135 million. The stock is up over 130% since the start of 2024.

The turnaround started with CEO Jamie Iannone, who took over six years ago and made a decision that sounds simple but wasn't: stop trying to out-Amazon Amazon. Instead, double down on what eBay actually does that nobody else does. Used goods. Collectibles. Refurbished items. Car parts. Fashion resale. Categories where authenticity, community, and trust matter more than two-day shipping.

Management built authentication programs for high-value items. A rare Pokémon card or a Gucci bag can be shipped first to an eBay expert for verification. Certain auto parts are now guaranteed to fit a buyer's specific car. A climate-controlled vault in Delaware lets expensive trading cards change hands without anyone taking physical delivery. International shipping through eBay handles customs and tariffs, so individual sellers don't have to. AI tools help sellers list items instantly. Seller fees were eliminated in Britain and Germany for individual sellers.

The macro environment helped too. The trading card boom has held. Demand for second-hand clothing is surging, especially among Gen Z. Gold and silver prices have shot up, lifting bullion and coin sales.

Serious enough that Ryan Cohen, the GameStop CEO, wants to buy it. Cohen made an unsolicited offer of roughly $56 billion, or $125 per share, in a 50/50 cash-and-stock deal. GameStop has built a roughly 5% stake in eBay and has a commitment letter from TD Bank for up to $20 billion in debt financing. Cohen says GameStop's physical store network could become both an authentication and a collection point for eBay sellers, and that eBay should be pushing harder into live commerce.

"eBay should be worth, and will be worth, a lot more money," Cohen told the Wall Street Journal. "It could be a legit competitor to Amazon.”

eBay's board said it would review the proposal. Most analysts aren't convinced.

eBay has built something that actually works again, focused on the specific corners of e-commerce where it has genuine advantages. Bolting on a struggling video game retailer to fund an acquisition at five times GameStop's own market cap is a complicated way to protect that momentum.

What this means for you: eBay's international shipping program, which handles customs and cross-border complexity on behalf of individual sellers, is generating real volume and growing. As eBay leans harder into collectibles and resale categories, fulfillment patterns differ from standard retail: higher per-item value, more authentication steps, and more individual-seller volume versus brand volume. If you serve resale or recommerce brands, eBay's revival is worth tracking closely.

SPONSORED BY: Tarrif Recovery Group

CAPE, the government's new tariff refund portal, launched two weeks ago and is actually working. Entries are being processed in seconds. The system has outperformed expectations.

The bottleneck now isn't the portal. It's the data going into it.

Experts are warning importers to treat this like a tax return. Dirty data gets rejected. And here's the part most people gloss over: CBP has the right to audit your entries for 2 years after the refund is issued. If your underlying data isn't clean before you file, you're not just risking a rejection today. You're setting yourself up for a headache two years from now.

This is exactly what Tariff Recovery Group handles. They audit your import history entry by entry, clean and verify your data before anything gets submitted, and manage the full filing process on your behalf. If you need cash before the government processes your refund, they'll buy your claim and pay you upfront.

Given the deadlines moving right now, sooner is better than later.

Book your free consultation here.

If you handle big and bulky or white-glove delivery, the most important story of the past week happened on May 1st in Atlanta.

The Teamsters staged a major rally at Home Depot's headquarters, targeting Temco Logistics, Home Depot's delivery subsidiary. After a group of Home Depot drivers in California unionized earlier this year, the union is now alleging relentless attacks and a refusal to bargain a fair first contract. Elected officials showed up. The optics were deliberate.

But this isn't really about a single facility or a single contract dispute. The Teamsters used May Day to signal something bigger: a nationwide push into the contractor-heavy delivery networks that major retailers depend on. For decades, the union's focus on logistics has been on warehouse workers and over-the-road drivers. Final-mile delivery, especially the 1099 and subcontracted model that powers most big-and-bulky fulfillment, has largely been left alone. That appears to be changing.

The contractor model exists because it's cheaper and more flexible than direct employment. Retailers and 3PLs have leaned on it heavily as last-mile delivery volumes grew. The Teamsters know this, which is exactly why they're targeting it. A successful organizing push at Temco becomes a template for similar networks across the country.

What this means for you: If your operation relies on 1099 or subcontracted delivery teams, your labor risk profile just changed. Now is the time to audit your contractor agreements and ensure your pay and safety standards can withstand a union spotlight. The Teamsters don't need to win every campaign to change the economics of your model. They just need to make the fight expensive enough that the contractor's approach no longer pencils out.

Target opened a $265 million supply chain facility in Houston. The retailer's first-ever "Receive Center" is a 1.2 million-square-foot facility located between its import warehouses in Georgia and Washington, where vendor inventory is received and held until downstream DCs need replenishment. It serves six regional distribution centers and one flow center, employs 185 people, and holds roughly 3 to 3.5 million cubic feet of product. Seasonal items, bulky goods, and hard-to-forecast SKUs get the most benefit. Target now has 70 supply chain facilities total, up from 55 in January 2023. The buildout is not slowing down. (Read More)

Huboo acquired Sorted Group, creating a platform spanning fulfillment, shipping, returns, and delivery analytics. The combined entity processes more than 100 million parcels annually, supports over 400 brands and retailers, and represents roughly £1 billion in gross merchandise value. Sorted's delivery management technology, already used by Marks & Spencer, Asda, and JD Sports, integrates into the Huboo platform while remaining carrier-agnostic. The combined group operates across Bristol, Manchester, Eindhoven, and Madrid. Huboo is backed by over £200 million in investment, including BlackRock, and is targeting expansion in the U.S., Asia, and the Middle East. (Read More)

Walmart's digital receipt option is creating friction at the exit door. Customers are pushing back on receipt checks after opting for text receipts, but the text hasn't arrived yet. Shoppers are documenting 25-minute customer service detours and one case where a worker walked a customer back to self-checkout to print a physical receipt when the text didn't come through. The complaints are relatively minor in isolation, but they point to a real operational gap: digital receipt rollouts that aren't synchronized with existing loss prevention procedures create friction that paper never did. (Read More)

Project Freedom. President Trump announced "Project Freedom" yesterday, a naval mission to escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz. While this aims to stabilize trade, Brent crude remains stubbornly above $107 per barrel. (Read More)

The right 3PL partner changes everything. Faster shipping, lower costs, fewer headaches, and the operational breathing room to actually focus on growing your brand. The wrong one costs you customers and the margin you can't get back.

FulfillYN helps brands find the right one the first time. We match you with vetted providers from a network of 360+ warehouses worldwide, guide you through the evaluation process, and stay involved until the partnership is locked in and working. No wasted calls, no guesswork.

Find your match at FulfillYN.com