Still smarting from shipment delays last Christmas, Amazon has been testing taxi cabs to deliver packages to customers in Los Angeles and San Francisco, according to a report.
Amazon has been using taxi-haling app Flywheel to fulfill orders in those cities this fall, reports The Wall Street Journal. The online retail giant is aiming to speed shipments and avoid the sort of snafus that plagued partners FedEx and UPS in the 2013 holiday season, according to the report.
Under the program, Amazon paid Flywheel cabbies about $5 per package and loaded the cars with as many as 10 packages bound for a single ZIP code, the report says.
Reps from Amazon could not be reached for comment.
To address the inevitable holiday shipping delays, Amazon has also reportedly been testing its own private delivery service, has gotten the U.S. Postal Service to deliver packages on Sundays and has famously considered drone deliveries.
Amazon, which added some bells and whistles to its Prime service this week, vies with brick-and-mortar retailers like Macy's that are using delivery services and contracted drivers to carry out their own deliveries. Uber has also dabbled with doubling as a courier service