Amazon Relay: Comprehensive Guide to Requirements, Benefits, and Optimization

As a delivery service business, are you planning to partner with Amazon in their relay program?

Is this your next business strategy to improve revenue? If it is, you have made a wise and profitable choice. According to industry stats, Amazon now holds over 21% of the US logistics market share. Despite not starting as a logistics company, this growth in industry domination surpassing other companies like FedEx (16%) is what you must keep an eye on.

As businesses crank up their delivery services, there needs to be a stable way to carry on these load fulfillments that Amazon is burdened with. The Amazon Relay program bridges your business and better profitability in the fleet services industry. 

In this article, you will understand what Amazon Relay is truly about, Amazon Relay requirements, the benefits of joining Amazon relay, and a route scheduling software that can 10x your Amazon profit.

Introduction to Amazon Relay

Amazon Relay is an exciting program beneficial for fleet services and delivery business owners. Moreover, Amazon is one of the largest competitors in the market today, following long-time players like FedEx and UPS. 

What is Amazon Relay?

Amazon Relay is a service by Amazon that allows businesses, truck owners, and freight services to carry and efficiently deliver goods from Amazon. This novel idea by Amazon has brought more profitability to most of its partnering businesses. 

The great thing about the Amazon Relay program is that service businesses in the delivery industry get to grow along with Amazon

Companies with the vehicular capacity to transport heavy volumes of Amazon load can join the Relay program. This collaboration between fleet services and Amazon has led to a highly fruitful collaboration, ensuring an outlet for growth in the business of service owners. 

Carriers can use this  app anywhere, including the grocery store checkout line, fuel stop, or parking lot to manage and execute loads as long as they have cellular network coverage.

How Does Amazon Relay Work?

Amazon Relay is a program that allows you to join the Amazon Load Board. This program connects owner operators with the Amazon freight network. It is a network of Amazon load postings available with all transparency, ensuring that relay drivers can easily access and book weeks’ worth of trucking schedules ahead of time.

The Relay Load Board is where the ‘work’ is posted. Instead of Amazon assigning loads or planning each route, it is posted on the Amazon Relay service that registered users, including box trucks and owner operators, can then view. This service is also absolutely free for any business to register.

Organizations with large volumes of deliverable load can also post them on the portal. Fleet owners and truck services can then easily select the ones that fall under their schedule and run these routes.

Amazon Relay ensures service owners consistency in load delivery work throughout the year. In addition, the important thing to understand is that Amazon alone cannot run the billions of load fulfillment they receive. 

This is where service partners like fleet services play an important role. Amazon ensures the smooth and timely delivery of goods by partnering up with local fleet services like yours.

Joining Amazon Relay

Amazon requires that carriers ensure a safety rating of satisfactory, abide by required insurance policies plus Amazon Relay insurance coverage requirements, use recommended equipment types, and follow a lot more. 

Requirements for Fleet Owners

Let’s clearly understand all the requirements to join Amazon Relay in detail.

1. Fleet Owner Criteria

For owners that own small or large fleets, Amazon requires:

• DOT identification in active status, that is active DOT number.
• Valid MC number (Interstate Authority).
• HOS compliance to adhere to commercial driving hours.
• Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) safety rating is required. 
• Amazon demands acceptable Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) safety rating of “Satisfactory”,  “None”, or “Not rated”.
• “Carrier” entity type Authorized for Property and Hire.

Documentation Needed

Apart from requirements like an active DOT number, valid MC number from interstate authority, and more, some other additional requirements are vehicle maintenance, HOS compliance, driving score, etc. Amazon requires these scores to be at least 60% and above to be approved by Amazon. 

2. Insurance requirements

Besides these above documents, fleet service owners must also discuss Amazon Relay insurance requirements with an insurance company as mentioned on the official Amazon website. 

Amazon Relay insurance requirements include: 

Minimum Coverage Levels

• Commercial General Liability of a minimum $1,000,000 per occurrence is one of the first Amazon Relay insurance requirements. In aggregate, this equates to $2,000,000. Commercial general liability covers typical body injury or property damage caused by your services, for instance. 
• Auto Liability includes $2,000,000 in the aggregate Auto Liability and not less than $1,000,000 per occurrence, with $50,000 trailer replacement coverage. This entails commercial vehicle insurance. All damages caused by vehicular accidents come under this insurance.
• Commercial Auto Insurance is applicable if you use a truck or van for commercial purposes. Commercial insurance coverage includes damages or injuries caused by accidents.
• Cargo coverage of a minimum of $100,000. This insurance deals with all damages to goods while in transit.
• Workers’ Compensation insurance covers all areas where your company operates from. All employees under your company will have mandatory workers’ compensation insurance. 
• Employer Liability of a minimum of $100,000 per occurrence. Lastly, employer liability protects against employment issues ranging from discrimination to wrongful termination. 

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

• Compliance issues: Read and understand Amazon’s strict policy requirements, including commercial general liability and auto liability insurance so your policy doesn’t get rejected. 
• Incomplete documentation: Be precise when it comes to paperwork and ensure you don’t have any missing pages or outdated information and submit them only after double-checking them.

3. Vehicle Specifications

Box truck requirements

Amazon Relay allows fleet services to use trailers, dry van trailers, box trucks, day cabs, sleeper cabs, reefers, etc. with interior cargo dimensions of at least 26ft x 8ft x 8ft.

The size requirement for the Amazon Relay box truck is as follows:

• Tractor: Day cab, Sleeper cab, Box Truck.
• Trailer: Reefer, 53’ Dry van, 28’ Trailer.

Additional Specifications

A few other requirements relate to the Amazon Relay app that service operators like vehicle drivers need to use. The app helps truck drivers reach their destination with additional information like delivery time, gate information, and more. 

Ensure that your iPhone operates with iOS 11 and that your Android devices are at least version of Android 7 or more.

These are just device requirements to ensure that the mobile app runs smoothly.

Benefits of Amazon Relay 

Amazon logistics delivered around 4.2 billion packages in 2020. During the pandemic, the surge in delivery skyrocketed. As transportation companies, now is the perfect opportunity to jump into the delivery industry, and the best way to do that is through the Amazon Relay program. 

Why Should You Join?

Joining the Amazon Relay program is a great way to boost the profit of your trucking company and the trucking industry in general. It also leads to great credibility in the industry. 

Partnering with Amazon is a great step towards good business growth, connecting you to a vast network of potential customers and a constant flow of accessible loads on the load board.

From a service business standpoint, the Amazon Relay program is a great strategy to reach more customers and find new prospects that turn into loyal and long-term customers. This program gives access to Amazon’s extensive load boards, offering you the chance to effectively book loads and extend your business.

Key advantages for trucking businesses

Some benefits of joining the Amazon Relay service are stated below.

• The biggest benefit is that there is no shortage of load delivery with Amazon. 
• Getting paid through the Amazon Relay program is a relatively easy endeavor.
• Choosing short-term contracts is beneficial for many businesses, and advanced booking is a service feature.
• Simple and modern driver application that is simple and gets the job done.
• With its advanced technological tools, Amazon is a great platform to improve your trucking business.

Key advantages for trucking businesses

Some benefits of joining the Amazon Relay service are stated below.

• The biggest benefit is that there is no shortage of load delivery with Amazon. 
• Getting paid through the Amazon Relay program is a relatively easy endeavor.
• Choosing short-term contracts is beneficial for many businesses, and advanced booking is a service feature.
• Simple and modern driver application that is simple and gets the job done.
• With its advanced technological tools, Amazon is a great platform to improve your trucking business.

Optimizing Your Amazon Relay Operations

Route Optimization Techniques

Carriers must emphasize reducing empty miles and maximizing travel time. Therefore, it is crucial to plan your routes, considering pickup and dropoff times, locations, and return loads. 

Using Route Optimization Software

Deploying route optimization software can help you plan and optimize routes based on multiple constraints, including traffic, vehicle capacity specifics, drivers’ availability, customers’ preferences, and delivery windows. 

Moreover, you can make changes to your routes based on real-time situations, such as emergencies or accidents, and redistribute stops among drivers so deliveries don’t get impacted. 

Strategic Route Planning

Amazon Relay’s mobile app can help you plan truck routes for commercial drivers, including truck-friendly routes that avoid load-restricted roads, low bridges, or residential areas. It also provides real-time notifications and alerts, which help drivers navigate routes efficiently. 

You can also use the “Post a Truck” feature to indicate your truck’s availability. Amazon’s automated system will then match your trucks with appropriate loads, which will reduce your idle time and enhance overall efficiency. 

Maintaining high-performance metrics

Amazon Relay uses a performance scoring system to evaluate carriers, which shows how capable a carrier is and whether it can carry desired loads. This score depends on four key metrics, including on-time delivery percentage, acceptance rate, app usage, and disruption-free delivery. 

Tips for Maintaining Scorecards

• Prioritize on-time arrivals at all types of locations, including pickups and deliveries.
• Use the app properly and log your activities so your timestamps are recorded accurately. 
• Be selective when you accept loads to ensure a high acceptance rate. This is because load rejection just before the pickup time can affect your carrier’s performance score. 
• Ensure your drivers don’t shut the app while on their trip to provide continuous location availability. 

Leveraging Upper Route Planner for Success

Now that you may be interested in joining the Relay program, you might wonder if there is a way to get better at transporting large Amazon loads as Relay partners.

Using smart route optimization software that automates and manages major aspects of your delivery process makes this a possibility. One such software that you need to keep an eye on is Upper route management software.

Features of Upper Route Planner

1. Optimized route planning

The need for an optimized delivery route is as important as ever. See, your deliveries can be delayed without optimized routes due to road accidents, unexpected traffic blocks, rush hour traffic, and more. This makes it difficult for your drivers to fulfill the daily delivery without delay and angry customers. Upper route optimization can save you from this unwanted chaos. Apart from this, Upper also provides valuable behavior analysis and safety features that allow you to monitor and enhance your drivers’ performance on the road.

2. Simple integration

With Upper, business owners can skip manual route planning and optimization. You can now automate the entire route planning and optimization process—find the quickest and safest route and send it to your truck drivers, who can then post a truck and execute the deliveries in the fastest time possible.

Better yet, you can just upload an XLS or CSV file of all stops to be made, and the algorithm selects the best order and route for you, simplifying your work schedule.

3. Seamless integration

Now you may wonder how to integrate Upper and Amazon Relay app into your daily delivery workflow. This can be done quite simply:

• Choose a load delivery from the Amazon Relay app.
• Plan this route by using Upper’s route planning and optimization feature. 
• Dispatch your drivers with this optimized route to deliver faster with a simple notification.
• Track driver and vehicle in real-time to ensure a streamlined delivery process, with the help of a load board app.

All this efficiency will actually equip you to run twice as many Amazon deliveries as you would normally be capable of running. 

Sign up for a 7 days free trial.

Conclusion

Getting your fleet service up and running is a huge feat on its own. Thanks to modern technological solutions, it is now much easier to run your business even during tough times. 

The Amazon Relay technology is one solution that every fleet service owner can leverage to offer your services to a wider clientele. 

Trucking companies may find it overwhelming to plan multiple multi-stop efficient routes. This can lead to poor scheduling, miscommunication, and negative customer reviews. To avoid such a disastrous outcome, implementing a route planning and optimization software like Upper is essential for better planning and execution.

You can easily sign up for a 3 days free trial with Upper to improve delivery efficiency and increase profits.