by Freedonia Industry Studies
October 6, 2020
The last mile delivery of e-commerce purchases continues to evolve rapidly.
Pre-pandemic, Amazon, Walmart, and others engaged in a massive competitive battle for next-day or even same-day delivery supremacy. However, those providers had to put that on hold to a degree as the e-commerce fulfilment infrastructure was quickly overwhelmed by a massive increase in e-commerce ordering of food and other household essentials as well as of games and other products as consumer became reluctant to shop in person.
Now, that battle is heating up again. But this time, we have some new players.
Now confident with curb-side pickup options from brick-and-mortar stores, some are extending the bricks-and-clicks model to include same-day delivery from local stores. For instance, Bed Bath & Beyond is expanding same-day delivery for its namesake stores as well as its Buy Buy Baby outlets in eligible zip codes via Shipt and Instacart. Target-owned Shipt is also evolving its model, offering retailers a delivery-only service (no personal shopping) known as Shipt Driven. The company continues to offer monthly and annual consumer-facing subscription plans as well as a newer pay-per-order option, from stores such as Target, Costco, CVS, and major grocers.
Additionally, major cities such as New York and London are seeing a growing number of options to get food and other products delivered in 15 minutes via e-bikes. While many of these offer a limited selection of goods, some customers indicate that the variety of products is less important than delivery speed.
Such efforts will provide a competitive advantage and, hopefully, a strong enough delivery infrastructure to support the coming holiday season.
For more information and discussion of opportunities, see The Freedonia Group’s extensive collection of off-the-shelf research, including packaging industry titles such as Global E-Commerce, Global E-Commerce Packaging, Protective Packaging, Retail Bags, and Global Corrugated Boxes. Freedonia Custom Research is also available for questions requiring tailored market intelligence.