Amazon announces $4 billion plan to expand delivery to rural towns

Ahead of its massive summer Prime Day event starting July 8, Amazon announced it's expanding its Same-Day and Next-Day delivery to more rural areas. This investment means more connections and jobs for thousands of American communities, as well as additional threats to local businesses.

The $4 billion project will triple the commerce giant's delivery network and include building out hybrid delivery facilities for 4,000 communities. According to Amazon, these facilities will serve multiple purposes and reduce transportation distances. The company expects to complete the project by the end of the year.

The new "hybrid hubs" will overhaul and expand existing rural delivery stations, allowing the storing of inventory and the preparing of deliveries. In addition to physical upgrades, Amazon will also begin implementing machine learning to "predict which items will resonate with local Prime members based on their unique needs" and stock accordingly, the company states.

"This expansion goes beyond speed. It's about transforming daily life for rural customers, who typically live farther from brick-and-mortar retailers, have fewer product and brand choices, and face limited delivery options when shopping online," Amazon officials wrote in a blog post.

In the past, Amazon has been accused of geographically limiting its expedited Prime shipping, even for Prime subscribers. In December, Washington D.C. attorney general Brian Schwalb filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming Amazon imposed secret "delivery exclusions" that slowed down service in select, predominantly Black, neighborhoods. In response to previous accusations of discriminatory delivery practices, Amazon said that the policies were merely protective actions in areas where there had been targeted incidents against delivery drivers.

Elsewhere, large retailers are testing new, human-less ways to speed up the delivery process, including Walmart's latest fleets of flying delivery drones now piloted across five states.