Many small businesses have long relied on Amazon’s platform and delivery pipeline to boost their business. Now, Amazon wants to enlist them to help with deliveries, too.

The e-commerce giant on Monday officially launched a program it has been piloting since 2020 that pays small business owners to deliver packages during the “last mile” of delivery to customers’ doorsteps. Axios first reported the launch.

Amazon has long been working on finding new ways to deliver packages faster and more efficiently, including working with third-party delivery companies, increasing its warehouse space and making other moves.

The program, called Amazon Hub Delivery, will operate in 23 states and focus on rural areas and large, dense cities including Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Hoboken, New Jersey.

The small businesses do not need delivery experience to apply for the program. But Amazon said businesses need to be able to make deliveries daily, deliver packages with existing staff and vehicles, receive packages daily and store them in a secure area until delivery.

The exact pay is undisclosed, but Amazon estimates a small business could earn up to $27,000 a year by making the deliveries. If a company delivers 30 packages a day — what Amazon says they will receive, on average — including weekends but excluding major holidays, that works out to about $2.50 a package.

Amazon said it’s interested in partnering with florists, coffee shops, clothing boutiques, gas stations, plumbers and hair salons, but it will consider other businesses too.

For now, the program will remain small. Amazon wants to partner with 2,500 small businesses by end of 2023. There are more than 33 million small businesses in the U.S., according to the Small Business Administration. Interested small businesses can apply at amazon.com/hubdelivery.

(AP)