How Lack of Same Day Delivery Saved Me

This is a logistics story in reverse.  Rather than discuss the benefits of same day delivery I am going to review with you how lack of same day helped this hapless consumer.

I was out wandering as I tend to do on Saturdays.  Usually I shop with my wife and while she looks for things I look at things and wonder how they got there and why someone would buy this stuff.  My eyes wandered to a "Big Green Egg" in Ace Hardware.  Ok, this may need some explaining.

A "Green Egg" is a ceramic outdoor cooker / smoker / grill.  A fascinating device which looks cool, people swear by the food it produces and costs a ton of money (Do I really need a $1000 grill)?  Of course, like all good products, once you buy the base produce there is a wall of "accessories" which can bring the full cost to $1300+.  They have learned well from the Iphone!

Ok, back to logistics.  I spent a lot of time looking at this device and two questions came to mind:  1) How would I get this home (I have cars not trucks) and 2) How would I get it to the back yard (it is very heavy)?  Those were the final two questions the sales person had to "sell" me on and I probably would have made this impulse buy.  Unfortunately, there were two answers he gave:

1) Earliest they could get it to me was next Wednesday (I live 5 miles from the store, he could have brought it in a pick up truck during his break).

2) They only do "curbside" delivery - I had to get it to my back yard and he agreed that was not easy.

I looked at him and said "let me think about that and I will get back to you".  Suffice to say, I never got back to him.   What happened?

Whatever the chemical is that causes a person to impulse buy started to go away and the "rational" chemical took over.  As my wife and I drove home we asked ourselves:  1) Do we really need a $1300 grill?  2) Who would move it if I had to move it again from the original location?  3) Wouldn't a $60 weber grill do a good enough job?

The answers came back:  1) NO,  2) Who knows and 3) Probably yes.  Therefore, no purchase and I went on my way (For the record, I did not even buy the Weber grill).  So, what are the lessons here:

1) If he had same day delivery I most likely would have bought it.
2) If he was willing to bring it around to my backyard (or even just help me) I definitely would have bought it.

The key lesson here is same day delivery makes a difference!  It is a differentiator and it drives sales.  Not only did I not buy this on this day, I most likely will never buy it.  Too hard.  Make it easy for the consumer and make it fast and you have a sale. Allow the consumer to think about it, and you could easily lose the sale.

This lesson is learned in reverse by the people who hawk timeshares in Vegas.  I once went to their pitch to get free show tickets (I had no intention of buying one of these).  I asked the sales person, trying to be polite, to let me look at the information over a few days and I would get back to him.  He said to me, "No one will buy these if we let them look at the information...".  Wildly honest but what he realized is the ability to deliver same day (in this case, same hour) took advantage of the adrenaline rush going on during the sale process - it assures a sale.  They delivered it same hour by having all the paper work ready, the financing there on site, the keys etc. etc.

You may ask, well does same day delivery really help since the person can just return the product once the urge is lost?  This question ignores both the normal inertia that exists in a consumer and the high desire to tell their friends, spouses, and themselves that they did not make a mistake and it was actually a brilliant purchase.

Ever hear someone defend buying a timeshare?  It is almost laughable listening to them try to explain it but, alas, they do.

Speed and ease of delivery drives sales - it is plain and simple.

As a consumer though, I was rescued by ACE not having same day delivery!

United States Post Office and Amazon - Sunday Delivery in NYC

Sunday delivery was inevitable (USPS and Amazon team up) and I have talked about this a few times.  In an article titled "Home Delivery Lockers at Wal-Mart" I discussed how Amazon might be able to team up with UPS to fight the "Clicks and Mortars" advantage of Wal-Mart.

But buried in that article I said the following:

"Of course, there is still partnering with the Post Office (interestingly UPS has already started doing in the sustainability space) which I think makes a lot of sense."

I also said that the United States Post Office could be the big winner in the fight for immediate home delivery as they already have a 6 day per week infrastructure to make this happen.   I wrote an article over a year ago titled: "Could the Post Office Be The Big Winner in Same Day Delivery?"

It appears they have, at least in NYC, started to win this battle.

Amazon Fresh - Amazon Groceries to a Door Near You

A fascinating discovery occurred the other day on my way to Chicago from Michigan.  As I was driving down I-94 I saw a delivery truck coming the other direction.  It looked a lot like the size / model of a UPS truck except it was somewhat lime green.  On the side of the delivery truck was a logo that said "Amazon Fresh".  It had the distinctive Amazon "arrow" logo and I thought to myself - OK, here it comes.

When I arrived at my location I immediately googled Amazon Fresh and was taken to their website and found it fascinating that it said " They offered limited delivery to Seattle neighborhoods" yet I had just seen an Amazon Fresh delivery truck in Southwestern Michigan! I had heard of this even as far back as 2007 and 2008 however I was shocked to see the truck in my area.

Then today Twitter and other news services lit up with the news Amazon is going to dramatically expand its grocery delivery service.  Those of us who were around in the late '90s remember webvan, Peapod and an entire host of these that ended really badly.  However, Amazon has been able to execute extremely well those things others could never figure out.  I would not count Amazon out at all and I would never discount their ability to make this work.

Along with a massive expansion of DCs, a push into same day delivery and now Amazonfresh going nationwide (or at least expanding) I would be very careful if I were a bricks and mortar retailer.  These guys are for real and it looks like they will be a force to be reckoned with in grocery delivery. 

Note:  I have written fairly extensively about the "delivery wars" including the idea of crowd sourcing for home delivery.  It is worth reading through all of this as you will see a pattern developing and a true "war" about to take place. 

Lessons From Kozmo.com for Same Day Delivery

Yes, it is true if you live long enough what is old will be new again.  This, of course, is the situation as it relates to the so called same day delivery wars.  I have mentioned over and over again that I am very skeptical of this beyond being a marketing hype ploy as the density needed (low miles per stop and high number of packages per stop) is virtually unachievable except in very dense cities.  And, of course, in those cities "couriers" have been around a long time so same day delivery is not new.

Now even our friends at the Wharton School of Business have weighed in on this by analyzing what went wrong in the late '90s with Kozmo in a posting entitled " Same Day Delivery: This Time it May Actually Work" - an organization dedicated to same day delivery which went out in a flash of glory - and why this time it may be different.  The basis of this argument?  It is all about density.

The issues remain and the questions continue to go unanswered in my humble opinion.  Some of them are:

1. How will you get the density?
2. How will you overcome the high costs of fuel?
3. Will this really generate incremental sales?
4. What happens when this becomes "an expectation"?  
5. Will this be given away for free and ultimately put pressure on margins?
6. Do people even want it (beyond the procrastinators who are probably not your best customers)?

The answer to number 6 equates to the idea of sticking a knife in a horse to get one last gallop out of it before you run it to death (i.e., What Kris Kristofferson does in True Grit).  Every retailer is fighting over that last incremental dollar as if it will make or break them.  My analysis suggests the amount of money spent to get that very last dollar of revenue probably is not worth it however that is what they are doing as a crowd.  They want that last dollar and appear to be ready to spend a fortune to get it.  

In my next posting on Same Day Delivery, I will propose a solution to this issue and we shall see what they think. 

Add Google To The Same Day Delivery Frontier

I have blogged a few times on what appears to be a growing number of companies interested in executing same day delivery.  At Logisticsviewpoints.com, Adrian Gonzalaz tells us to add Google to the list of those who want to try their hand at this.

I understand the push and I understand in large dense cities this may be something people want and will pay for.  Other than that, I am not sure the value in this.

More On Same Day "Delivery Wars"

My readers know I have been blogging about this, with thoughts on what will work, for almost a week now.  I started with a post asking whether Amazon awakened the sleeping giant of Wal-Mart and also wrote about the inherent advantages of scale and dispersion that the United States Post Office possesses in this space.

Note: to follow this story on my blog as it develops make sure to click on the tag: Same Day Delivery.

SCdigest has now written about it (I must admit, I love when I "scoop" a professional journal!) and they are calling it the "same day wars".  Not sure I would use the war analogy but it is interesting they see it that way.

My experience has been same day shipping is more a "marketing gimmick" than reality.  How many people really cannot afford a quick trip to Wal-mart (which is open 24 hours a day mostly)?  Will they really pay $10 to avoid that trip?  I think same day shipping ads will draw eyeballs (which is good - creates sales) but when the customer is about to dispense with $10 or $20 extra dollars they will decide a quick car trip could be enjoyable!

Could The Post Office Be The Big Winner in Same Day Delivery?

An interesting development in the "same day delivery wars" which has been brewing as of late with Amazon and Wal-Mart.  The key question is who is going to do this from a delivery standpoint and who can do it at a very low cost?

Already, the USPS gets something to you for about .45 cents which FEDEX may charge you $5.00 or more.  Granted, they get it faster however with just a small amount of pre-planning you can change that $5.00+ charge to .45.  Most of what FEDEX is charging us for is a premium for our inefficiency and lack of planning.

Enter the USPS in the same day shipping.  As we know, the infrastructure costs for same day shipping are massive (advantage Wal-mart over Amazon since Wal-Mart has essentially 4500 distribution centers) and thus usually make it economically impractical. The USPS has some interesting, already in place, advantages:

1. Huge infrastructure - generally an office in every town regardless of size
2. Already mandated to go to just about every house every day in the Country
3. Will pick up as well as delivery and usually without an appointment. 
4. If you are not home, the trip to the USPS is generally very short (FEDEX for example has pulled out of my small town.  If I am not home when a FEDEX shipment comes and I want it I have to drive 1/2 hour to get it.. my post office is less than 1 mile away)

With some sophisticated routing tools, the USPS could, in a town, sweep the town to pick up the deliveries, bring to their "cross dock" then conduct the deliveries at night.  In some cases they can incorporate the delivery into their already established routes and in others they can utilize the equipment which is just sitting anyway.

This should be fun to watch!

Has Amazon Awakened The Sleeping Giant? - Walmart Same Day Delivery

I think one thing a lot of industries and companies have regretted is taking on Walmart.  Circuit City tried, Toys 'R Us tried and others continue to try.  Little 'ole Amazon was sitting very nicely with a great business dealing with parcel delivery in a few days.  However, that was not good enough.

They now want to turn their vast and sophisticated network of distribution centers into same day fulfillment centers.  There are pros and cons to this and clearly it is a very expensive proposition.  Except for the most densely populated areas, same day delivery is cost prohibitive.  It is especially prohibitive if you have a normal central distribution point system.  Distribution centers like Amazon has are designed to service large service areas - like 250 mile radius and are too big to blanket the Country with them.

Enter Walmart and their "test" of same day delivery.

Walmart sees the Amazon plans and basically says, "I see your same day delivery and I raise you by 4,500 stores / "Distribution Centers".  The interesting part of a Walmart store is the consumer sees it as a retail store yet the smart people in Bentonville see them all as distribution centers.  Let's say the average radius around a store is 15 miles before you hit another store.  Given this (and I am sure the statistic is available.. this is my guess.. not counting the outlands / badlands etc) you can see the advantage Walmart has and will always have over Amazon in same day delivery.  This will remain true unless Amazon wants to go on a mind boggling spree of capital investment to build out stores.  My bet is if there truly is a market for same day delivery (which is very questionable) then Walmart wins before Amazon even gets on the field.

A lot of people have lost a lot of money betting against Amazon over the years however this endevor may be a "bridge too far" even for Amazon.  My advice:  Don't take on Walmart.  Find the white space between you and Walmart (as Amazon has done so nicely over the years) and dominate that space.

The war of final mile delivery is about to begin!

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