Amazon Plans Two-Hour Delivery Within Berlin, Local Media Says

Amazon is preparing to introduce a two-hour delivery service in Berlin, local newspaper Welt reported on Saturday. The company plans to house about 10,000 items at a warehouse in Berlin’s fashionable Kurfuerstendamm area to ensure fast deliveries, according to local media.

While Amazon reportedly used Deutsche Post's DHL parcel service for deliveries in Germany, the company is now slowly building up its own delivery capabilities, as it aims to create a cost-efficient logistics system.

According to Reuters, deliveries would start in May and would at first be carried out by courier firms already active in the German capital.

The online retail giant has already built a network of about 60 Amazon Prime Now hubs in or near large cities in the U.S. to offer its customers one or two hour deliveries. The company has also extended this service in London. Amazon Prime, which offers a number of shipping options, films, music and TV series for an annual fee, had three million subscribers towards the end of December last year.

The company recently announced that it had added 20 Boeing 767s to its delivery network, saying that the move will help them deliver their own goods to fulfillment centers. Amazon is also working on drone technology in a bid to speed up deliveries.

Currently, Amazon loses billions of dollars in getting goods to consumers. The soaring shipping costs, which directly impact the company’s bottom line, could be reduced if Amazon relied lesser on external delivery services, such as UPS, FedEx or the U.S. Postal Service.