You just knew Amazon wasn’t going to get shut out of a DOT sanctioned drone delivery pilot program a year ago that let in Google, a FedEx/General Electric/Intel team and Uber, and take it lying down. The ecommerce giant unveiled a bold new delivery system that’s part drone, part aircraft and part robot that uses sensors, AI and ML.
In a saturated industry, subscription box companies need a differentiator to succeed. From Blue Apron’s first-ever experiential retail popup shop to Birchbox’s partnership with Walgreens, they’re looking for ways to grow their business and meet consumer demands. Shipping excellence is one way to set yourself apart from the pack.
Amazon just turned up the heat in the three-way battle for dominance atop ecommerce sellers, announcing more than 10 million items eligible for its new one-day delivery standard via Prime. This compares with 220,000 items available for free next-day delivery from Walmart, announced in mid-May, and 35,000 from Target ReStock.
Starting in January, FedEx will make deliveries seven days a week to meet increasing demand from ecommerce shippers, while diverting about 2 million packages per year from the U.S. Postal Service’s last-mile service to build necessary density and shave costs.
Amazon is offering third-party sellers on its marketplace discounts of up to 75% to use its warehouse space in an effort to make more inventory within reach of one-day shipping for its new Prime promise. This will allow Amazon to place more items closer to customers to meet the new Prime guarantee.
As the bar is continually raised on customer experience expectations for ecommerce orders, partnerships like the recent one between popular CRM platform Zendesk and post-purchase management software firm Narvar will become more common.
The largest two-story fulfillment center in the country will be under construction later this year in the Bronx, NY, with a planned 2021 opening, enabling ecommerce tenants to service the New York metro market with same-day delivery. It will total 969,000 square feet, including 595,000 square feet of fulfillment space.
Stein Mart has become the latest retailer to partner with Amazon, betting that increased traffic to the ecommerce giant’s lockers in the back of its stores for order pickup and returns will translate to sales for the struggling discount chain. The lockers will be located in about 200 of Stein Mart’s 283 stores by early June.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling, which denied UPS’s legal claim that the U.S. Postal Service’s pricing model gave it an unfair advantage over parcel shipping competitors. In 2018, a U.S. Appellate Court in Washington, DC upheld the pricing methodology. Amazon backed the USPS in the case.
If Amazon owns nearly half of the U.S. ecommerce market, why the need to offer one-day delivery? The reason: Its singular obsession with customer centricity. Insights abound for those able to get past the headlines. Here are three of the most important takeaways that were either overlooked or under-covered in the media frenzy.