Amazon.com is moving into the freight forwarder space in ocean shipping.
The global online retailer has started helping retailers in China ship goods via container to the US according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
The report said that Amazon had help ship at least 150 containers from China to the US since October according to data Ocean Audit, a company specializing in ocean-freight refund recovery for shippers.
While far removed from Amazon running its own container shipping operations it sees move into a space occupied by freight forwarders and third party logistics providers.
According to the report the service is primarily being used by Chinese sellers “Fulfillment by Amazon” service, which allows merchants to store items at Amazon’s warehouses that Amazon then packs and ships when they are sold.
Amazon registered itself as an NVOCC with the US Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) in January last year.
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