The company’s Flex programme, which began in the US in 2015 before expanding to Germany 2 years later, pays drivers to ferry packages in their own vehicles from Amazon warehouses to customers’ homes. Amazon declined to say why it decided to halt the service in Germany, its second largest market after the US. But in recent years, the company has built a more formal delivery network, relying on small startups beholden to Amazon, which the company calls Delivery Service Partners or DSPs. Amazon is offering some Flex drivers a one-time payment equal to 4 weeks’ pay, according to communications reviewed by Bloomberg. The notices also encourage them to join one of hundreds of German DSPs. That network is capable of absorbing “the very small portion of deliveries that Amazon Flex has been making” while meeting delivery pledges, the company said on Tuesday (Jun 7).
Amazon is shuttering its gig economy delivery service in Germany
