Merchants ease delivery promises

Small merchants are easing off the race to match Amazon’s delivery speed and are promising longer shipping windows instead. (pymnts.com) PYMNTS reported on April 22 that smaller businesses are shifting toward “efficiency, transparency” and value after years of pressure to offer next-day or same-day service. The outlet said many shoppers still want fast delivery but often will not pay enough to cover the added cost. (pymnts.com) That tradeoff starts in the warehouse. To deliver in one day, merchants often need inventory spread across multiple facilities closer to customers, which raises storage, software and transportation costs for businesses that do not have Amazon-scale order volume. (pymnts.com) Amazon is still moving the other way. The company said on June 24, 2025 that it would expand same-day and next-day Prime delivery to more than 4,000 smaller cities, towns and rural communities by the end of 2025, backed by more than $4 billion in investment through 2026. (aboutamazon.com) Amazon said on February 3, 2026 that more than 13 billion items arrived the same or next day worldwide in 2025, and that its U.S. same-day network now gives the vast majority of Americans access to millions of products within hours. (businesswire.com) For landlords and logistics brokers, slower promises can change which buildings look attractive. If merchants need fewer urban “infill” sites near dense neighborhoods, they can rely more on larger, cheaper regional warehouses that accept a longer trip to the customer. (pymnts.com) One market that could benefit is Southern California’s Inland Empire, a major warehouse hub east of Los Angeles. Cushman & Wakefield said its overall industrial vacancy rate reached 8.5% in the first quarter of 2026, while CBRE put vacancy in the Inland Empire Core at 7.8% and said asking lease rates averaged $1.09 per square foot per month. (cushmanwakefield.com) (cbre.com) Those higher vacancy rates leave tenants with more options than they had during the pandemic warehouse boom, when fast-delivery networks soaked up space near big population centers. Kidder Mathews said Inland Empire vacancy hit 7.7% in the first quarter of 2026 and that tenants still held negotiating leverage. (kidder.com) Parcel carriers are adjusting too. UPS said in January 2025 earnings that it was cutting Amazon volumes by more than 50% by June 2026 while pushing further into small and medium-sized business shipping; PYMNTS said those businesses accounted for 31.2% of UPS U.S. volume, the highest share in a decade. (pymnts.com) The result is a wider split in retail logistics. Amazon is still spending billions to make delivery feel immediate, while many smaller merchants are deciding that a believable three-day promise is cheaper than pretending they can deliver tomorrow. (aboutamazon.com) (pymnts.com)