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Since Yellow filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations in summer 2023, trucking companies have scampered to fill the void left in the less-than-truckload (LTL) sector. But this industry, like many others before it, may be in for some disruption if Amazon decides to make a concerted push into the space—as one investment bank suggests.
A Friday research note from J.P. Morgan warned LTL players that Amazon could take away market share in the sector if it decided to enter the field as a “for-hire” competitor.
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“The most obvious risk for LTL stocks is if this service launches for external users at some point in 2026 as it is pretty much impossible to put that disruptive idea back in the box,” J.P. Morgan’s Brian Ossenbeck said in his note.
In the wake of the note’s release, Old Dominion (9 percent), Saia (9 percent), XPO (5.5 percent), ArcBest (5 percent), TFI International (7 percent) and Knight-Swift (3 percent) all saw stock prices fall substantially late last week.
Ossenbeck’s note followed up the posting of several jobs for positions within the e-commerce giant’s full truckload freight division, Amazon Freight. One position, posted Feb. 17, is for a sales operations manager at Amazon Freight’s go-to-market team. That team supports the sales team by introducing new products and modes—with the post highlighting LTL as one such new offering.
On Thursday, Amazon posted an opening for a supply chain manager at the Amazon Freight LTL dispatch and disruptions team based out of Tempe, Ariz. This role is tasked with hiring and developing a team responsible for executing and improving inbound freight performance and mitigating disruptions within the LTL network.
The next day, the tech titan put up a post for a supply chain manager at the Amazon Freight LTL team in Bellevue, Wash. This position appears to be focused on establishing the pilot services, scaling the LTL network and identifying opportunities for performance improvements and cost saving.
Sourcing Journal reached out to Amazon.
Scooter Sayers, founder and CEO of LTL-specific logistics consultancy Sayers Logistics, said it was “very possible” for Amazon Freight to make the move to LTL shipping.
“Amazon has the cross-dock network, the line haul network, the systems and the people in place to start up a sizable LTL operation,” said Sayers in a post on LinkedIn. “Heck, they already run an LTL operation, they just don’t make it available to the outside. The only thing Amazon appears to be missing is the local pickup/delivery network needed across the U.S. to move pallets rather than parcels. Maybe they can outsource that like line haul, maybe borrowing the playbook on the parcel front.”