Amazon Prime Now (E-Bike Opportunity?)

Well I happened upon this add the other day -

[youtube]ODLp4ZGQwzk[/youtube]

And here's a story of that service being used in my area (I live 20 miles from Portland, but we're more like a suburb of Portland)

http://www.kptv.com/story/29883355/amazon-prime-now-launches-in-portland

And just yesterday a friend of mine mentioned he was going to start doing Amazon Flex:

https://flex.amazon.com/?cs=IN&c=Portland&cid=Por2

So I'm really hoping this comes to Oregon City, as anything a bicycle courier can do, an E-Bike should be that much faster!

Anyone else seeing this in their town or better still, signing up to make deliveries?

I know for Amazon Flex you're required to use a car and have a Android Phone, but for small things like food delivery, an insulated "hot box" should be all you need!

Is it strange I think this would be a neat job, but am overall frightened by the concept being pulled off by amazon? Brick and mortar stores should have beat them to it if they want to compete with internet.

Brick and mortar says 'screw it', sells company stock and buys amazon's.
Wait- I guess you could be close to just go to warehouse and shop outside on your phone, but somehow that's not the same

From the Amazon Flex FAQ:

Can I bike or walk?
Currently we are only offering options to drive but in the future we may offer opportunities to deliver via bike or on foot.

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Combine this with:

http://www.topsecretev.com
We have shifted our focus away from “low-cost consumer based e-bikes” to Micro-EV’s, e-Cargo, Delivery e-bikes, Rental e-bikes, Fleet Bikes & Tandems, e-Mobility Products and e-Kits. We are not turning away any new concept e-bike designs; only we feel there is no future stateside in traditional low cost e-bikes with a bloated market share.

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I think Justin may have found an un-bloated and profitable market to serve.

On a sidenote, I investigated newspaper delivery in my area with the thought that I might be able to work the vehicle cost margin with EV's. It turns out that the time-factor prevents any kind of decent wage and I think the people doing the deliveries were all skirting income declaration for various reasons (gov't benefits).

Wow. That does look like a great opportunity.

How would they know if you didn't use a car? Small packages can fit in a backpack while riding your ebike.

lester12483 said:

Wow. That does look like a great opportunity.

How would they know if you didn't use a car? Small packages can fit in a backpack while riding your ebike.

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I suppose, but imagine if the recipient of the delivery saw you and THEN commented to Amazon how cool it was that it was delivered by E-Bike!

I think you're on to something, I can register with my parent's Saturn Vue, and if it's really nasty weather or w/e, use the car, and E-Bike if not!

*** P.S. ***

Maybe Amazon would be totally ok with this idea, as long as a car was listed as being available. 8)

I think it'd be nifty if Amazon were to allow ebikes to deliver their stuff (and I never even considered it until this thread). I have a great vehicle for that sort of thing, in the SB Cruiser trike and the cargo/dog trailer for it.


If you have a passenger-capable cargo bike or trike (mine isn't *yet*), you could also try another thing: Uber (kind of a taxi service). You'd have to get them to allow you to do it first, cuz AFAIK they only do cars and trucks and stuff right now, but if there were enough requests for it, they might add the option.

Some poeple might pick an ebike taxi ride just to be different.

I know just the bike for giving the taxi rides...

Comfortable reclining position and a great view of something other than the driver's fundament for the passenger, small wheels for good efficiency and thrust with a DD hubbie and it even has a luggage rack.

I was thinking of this one:





(though it actuallly only looks like this, and the above is someone's photochop :lol: but I someday still wanna make my Barkfiet that *could* do that)

this bike would be perfect for it:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=75758

I'm assuming you mean for the original topic, of Amazon Prime Now? If so, then if you use it to pull a trailer, perhaps--do you know how large and heavy some of the things that can be ordered that way are?

I know people using Amazon Prime Now and Prime Pantry, and some of the large heavy items they semi-frequently get are large 24+ packs of bottled water, 30-40lb buckets of cat litter, etc. Sometimes multiples of each of those in a single delivery. I don't know how they are delivered for sure, but have been told that they actually use Uber for at least some of the deliveries, rather than normal parcel services. (this would explain the limitation to larger vehicles than bikes, if true)

I know I could do those on my trike, and with the trailer I could do them on my bike for sure...possibly could do them without the trailer, directly in the cargo pods and across the top, with a cat litter bucket strapped down behind the wheel on the trailer hitch platform with blocks of wood either side of the hitch ball as a "shelf" to keep the bucket from breaking on the ball during bumps. But the bike would handle like crap (as I have done exactly this configuration before, with various heavy and large items) and it will beat the rear wheel up really hard on it.

Using the trailer would be way easier on the bike itself, and I could carry spare wheels for the trailer should the trailer itself be unable to deal with the load (unlikely), making them quick-change (maybe even QR hubs) so I wouldnt' be slowed in the delivery more than a few short minutes at most.


Suspension on your bike would definitely help with the load on the rear, but it'd still handle terrible with that much stuff back there , so if you needed good handling of the bike itself you'd wanna use a trailer for the cargo.

I expect most stuff wouldnt' be that big and heavy, but to be competitive with delivery capability, it'd help to have a vehicle capable of moving the same thigns cars could.

amberwolf said:

I think it'd be nifty if Amazon were to allow ebikes to deliver their stuff (and I never even considered it until this thread). I have a great vehicle for that sort of thing, in the SB Cruiser trike and the cargo/dog trailer for it.


If you have a passenger-capable cargo bike or trike (mine isn't *yet*), you could also try another thing: Uber (kind of a taxi service). You'd have to get them to allow you to do it first, cuz AFAIK they only do cars and trucks and stuff right now, but if there were enough requests for it, they might add the option.

Some poeple might pick an ebike taxi ride just to be different.

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I looked into uber when they started up in my small city. They require a late model car, but that probably has to do with liability. Cargo only might need less stringent requirements, although reliability has to factor somehow.

This E-S forum probably has the range of business/software/hardware expertise to incubate an uber-type ebike delivery service. The bikes at work trailer guy here in my town also operates a recycling/delivery service featuring pedalists using his trailers.

http://www.connectsavannah.com/savannah/getting-down-to-business-with-bicycles/Content?oid=2357906

Nice link gogo, I'm always impressed to see what ppl are able to do with just a light powered E-Bike and a really nice trailer!