Amazon Invests $4B to Expand Delivery Network in Rural America
Online retail giant Amazon has revealed that it’s investing more than $4 billion to expand its rural delivery network, with a focus on small towns across the United States, to bring faster delivery to customers in less densely populated areas.
This investment will grow the company’s rural delivery network’s footprint to 200-plus delivery stations. According to Amazon, once the expansion is complete, its network will be able to deliver more than 1 billion more packages each year to customers living in 13,000-plus ZIP codes spanning 1,200,000 square miles — an area the size of Alaska, California and Texas combined.
Amazon opened its first rural delivery station in 2020. Three year later, it began scaling its small-town delivery network, and has already seen improvement in delivery speeds by 50% on average. The speed improvements come primarily from placing products closer to customers.
By the end of 2026, Amazon said that it will have tripled the size of its rural delivery network, allowing Prime members in small towns and rural communities to receive their packages even faster — cutting average delivery times in half.
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According to the company, Amazon delivered at its fastest speeds ever for Prime members globally in 2024, and delivered more than 9 billion items the same day or the next day. The company achieved its fastest speeds ever in the United States by expanding the number of Same-Day Delivery sites by more than 60% last year.
Amazon's $4 billion rural investment will create an estimated 100,000-plus new jobs in various full-time, part-time and flexible positions in facilities and on the roads.
Seattle-based Amazon is No. 2 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2024 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America. The company was also named among PG’s Retailers of the Century and its Most Sustainable Grocers list.
