Amazon wants small businesses to help make deliveries [Video]

SEATTLE — 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 …