Postmates Takes On Amazon

One of the problems with a company that wields as much influence in the industry as Amazon does is that sometimes it forces its main competitors to become more like it just to stay alive. That’s certainly what it looks like Postmates is doing — though they’d say differently.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Postmates VP of Growth Kristin Schaefer outlined her company’s plans to launch Postmates Plus Unlimited, a $9.99 per month service that will give customers unlimited deliveries for purchases $30 and over from any of the thousands of merchants Postmates already counts under its Plus program. There’s a service fee attached to each transaction, but that’s not the money-making part of the venture according to Schaefer, who noted that, with 50 percent of its order volume comprising $30 or greater totals, cutting out the bottom half will allow it to sustain the new program without bleeding revenue to shipping costs.

Schaefer also balked at inevitable comparisons between Postmates Plus Unlimited and Amazon’s now-ubiquitous Prime service.

“The goal is to make local inventory that’s offline and even online really accessible in every city,” Schaefer told TechCrunch. “That’s very counter to Amazon’s mission with warehouses.”

What might be worth watching with Postmates Plus Unlimited is how the retailers signed onto its Plus program handle the change in order balance and volume from new and existing customers. Schaefer said that 40 percent of Postmates’ delivery bandwidth is taken up exclusively by merchants that pay between 15 and 30 percent to participate in the Plus program and to get preferential placement on Postmates’ site and reduced charges for their shoppers.

If shoppers truly take advantage of the unlimited part of Postmates’ new endeavor, the balance between what its client partners are willing to pay and what Postmates thinks its new logistical costs require them to could see some dramatic changes.