Flexe rolls out next-day deliveries to support on-demand warehousing, fulfillment

On-demand warehousing and fulfillment company Flexe said today it has launched a next-day ground delivery service in a bid to challenge Amazon.com, Inc.'s growing dominance of the U.S. warehousing, fulfillment and delivery segment.

Seattle-based Flexe, which began an on-demand warehousing service in 2013 and added e-fulfillment last year, will rely on asset-based parcel carriers to deliver goods within a coverage area equal to 98 percent of the U.S. population, according to Karl Siebrecht, the company's founder and CEO. Flexe does not own or operate warehouses, and instead leverages its technology to match the needs of warehouse operators with tenants in a "spot market" type environment.

The Flexe marketplace, which is comprised of 550 warehouses, now has the geographic density to make such a large delivery network "operationally feasible" for e-commerce companies, Siebrecht said in an e-mail. It works with 200 warehouse "partners."

Flexe made no secret of who it is going after, touting that online businesses now have a faster option that Amazon "Prime," the Seattle-based company's popular two-day delivery service which provides unlimited deliveries for an annual fee.

"Flexe gives them the same network scale as Amazon, allows them to ship products in their own branded box, and gets them up and running in 30 days," Siebrecht said in a statement.