It's easy to forget that Amazon started as an online bookseller without any bricks-and-mortar warehouses.
The e-commerce retail giant probably should be looking over its shoulder at the growing number of retail chains—all of which have been busy in the past two years building out national networks of fulfillment centers—that are taking a page out of Amazon's strategic playbook and leveraging their warehouse footprints to offer shipping services to smaller businesses.
These players may have a bigger goal in mind than simply leveraging a portion of their warehouse assets, like the estimated 40% share of Amazon warehouses the e-retailer reserves for independent sellers—they may be thinking of something along the lines of Amazon Web Services (AWS).
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