Amazon is suspending delivery on some items as it continues to deal with surges caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the company has announced it will be halting its Amazon Shipping program in June in order to move workers towards fulfilling its own orders - just days after it was reported that Amazon Prime Day 2020 is very likely to be delayed.
Launched in 2018, Amazon Shipping looked to compete with the likes of FedEx and UPS, delivering non-Amazon products across several major US cities, including New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
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Amazon Shipping closes
“We regularly look at a variety of factors across Amazon to make sure we’re set up in the right way to best serve our customers,” Amazon said in a statement.
The company has had to deal with a change in how it operates in recent weeks, with coronavirus panic-buying causing many items to run low, and delivery slots to take longer than their allotted time.
Last month, Amazon said it would be hiring 100,000 warehouse and delivery workers in the US to deal with the surge in online orders, but the company has also had to close several facilities after workers tested positive for Covid-19.
The news comes days after Amazon announced it would be freezing shipments of Fulfilled-by-Amazon (FBA) products to prioritize essential items. This move caused thousands of FBA sellers on Amazon Marketplace to protest, saying they could lose out of revenue that would stop them going bankrupt.
At least 53 percent of Amazon sellers are thought to be affected by the freeze, with almost all third-party sellers selling their products through FBA and only select sellers are currently allowed to sell products in allowed categories.
