Amazon.com Inc. is finally gearing up to launch its long-rumored push to become a shipping provider.

That’s according to a Wall Street Journal report published this morning, which claims the retail giant plans to roll out a new package delivery service in the coming weeks. The operation is set run under the brand “Shipping with Amazon” and will first become available in Los Angeles before expanding to other cities.

Initially, Amazon will reportedly carry out deliveries only for merchants that sell goods via its platform. The Journal’s sources said the company intends to make the service available for other organizations as well further down the road. According to the tipsters, Amazon hopes to lure customers away from FedEx Corp. and UPS Inc. by offering lower prices.

The report sent the two delivery giants stock sliding more than 3.5 percent this morning. The reason for investors’ concern is twofold: Amazon has a long track record of successfully shaking up traditional industries, and it also happens to be among the top buyers of package delivery services in the U.S.

Analysts at Cowen and Co. LLC said in a note today that the retail giant is estimated to account for about 10 percent of UPS’ total sales. FedEx, meanwhile, generates about 3 percent of its revenue from Amazon deliveries, according to the brokerage firm, which sees varying impacts from the Amazon move.

“The complex global delivery networks of FedEx (and UPS) are highly difficult to replicate,” wrote Cowen analyst Helane Becker. “We believe the weakness in the shares of FedEx today presents an attractive buying opportunity for investors. We believe Amazon is UPS’s largest customer, and would be more impacted by a loss of volume.”

Amazon has been aggressively scaling up its delivery infrastructure to become less dependent on external shipping partners. Cowen’s figures indicate the company added about 44 million square feet of warehouse space in each of the past two years, compared with an average of 17 million square feet per year from 2010 to 2015. Amazon also operates a sizable delivery fleet that includes thousands of trucks and 40 cargo planes.

But the company has a long way to go before it can match the scale of UPS or FedEx. The latter provider alone boasts some 170,000 delivery vehicles.

Over time, however, Amazon could certainly become a serious contender if its success in other industries is any indication. That’s particularly true given the retail giant’s technological edge. In the U.K, for example, Amazon is experimenting with the use of delivery drones, an approach that has the potential to reshape the shipping market fundamentally if it ever becomes viable on a large scale.

Indeed, companies are taking the effort seriously.

“Amazon’s move to add delivery services to their business customers is a demonstration of how they are working to enable end-to-end, customer-centric experiences for everyone, said Scott Webb, president of Avionos LLC, a digital customer experience firm. “We can expect this initial roll out to serve as a basis to improve the offering, as Amazon takes an iterative approach to enhancing it as they expand to new geographies throughout the year.”

Image: Amazon