Amazon will continue to reap benefits from its post-Covid overhaul of its fulfillment network in 2024 and beyond. It’s a key pillar in the Investing Club’s belief that the stock has even more upside ahead. The advantages of rightsizing and regionalizing Amazon’s national operations around warehousing, shipping, and managing returns are two-fold: cost savings and faster delivery times. Amazon’s strategy to cut the pandemic bloat out of its e-commerce operations is “paying off and speeding up shipping times and reducing costs,” said Jeff Marks , director of portfolio analysis for the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer. “If Amazon can continue to drive these efficiency gains, the margin expansion should keep [shares]” adding to last year’s strong gains. Since the first quarter of 2023, the e-commerce giant either closed, canceled, or delayed the construction of roughly 202 facilities, according to recent data from MWPVL International. The supply chain and logistics consultancy, which has been tracking Amazon for more than 15 years, attempted to put those savings into hard numbers. As a result of the real estate reshuffling, MWPVL estimates about $10.5 billion in capital expenditure savings and additional billions in operating expense savings. The data was reported by Roth MKM, which recently hosted a conference call with MWPVL CEO Marc Wulfraat. Some of the benefits are already showing up in Amazon’s financials. Management said last month during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call that Amazon in 2023 reduced its cost-to-serve on a per-unit basis globally for the first time since 2018. Amazon thinks it can do it again this year. Management also said 2023 was the fastest year ever for delivery to Prime members. Not only is stocking items closer to their final destination lowering costs, but the faster delivery times are stoking demand, CEO Andy Jassy contended on Amazon’s third-quarter earnings call. “When you deliver faster delivery to customers they…
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