41–50 of 78 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ahn? I think a self-driving car would still need someone to carry the product from the car to the door, or am I missing something?
Rumors are that Google is testing a grocery-delivery bipedal robot that can climb stairs, use the elevator, etc.
Did you know Microsoft was going to own ecommerce too? Yep, throughout much of the early to late 1990s, it was a common statement. Magazines ran stupid cover stories proclaiming Microsoft would dominate ecommerce.
And a modern interface (re: Google)? What does that even mean. Like how Craiglist has suffered immensely because it doesn't have a supposed modern interface? It's a laughable statement. Just another indication the writer doesn't know what he's talking about. Consumers don't care about what some designer may think is a so-called modern interface. Consumers care about an interface being simple, fast loading, easy to use, etc. Amazon does a great job at that; they've compacted millions of products down to a single search bar and a drop down nav that is very easy to use.
The extrapolation the author makes about saving $2k to $5k per year is silly in nature. Complete nonsense. It ignores whether one product is superior to the other, such that one is more expensive / cheaper. It ignores consumer demand, dictating higher or lower prices. It ignores supply of the product influencing pricing. Personally I liked the bamboo shoe shelf and would rather pay $20 for it than $12 for the other one that I didn't like. The author didn't even bother to actually compare products. The caveat at the bottom nullifies the entire point of the post.
If I was Amazon I'd be more worried about self-driving cars. Self-driving cars will make natural delivery vehicles. If Google partnered with local retailers to provide check-out via wallet and delivery via automated cars, it would disrupt more than just Amazon. Google has all of the nascent building blocks in place: Google Wallet, Google Shopping Express, Google Shopping, Google Maps with StreetView for routing, auto…
That's still hugely inefficient, though. The optimal solution is what Amazon does for most things- a giant, central warehouse with stuff that you deliver.
If I was Amazon I'd be more worried about self-driving cars. Self-driving cars will make natural delivery vehicles. If Google partnered with local retailers to provide check-out via wallet and delivery via automated cars, it would disrupt more than just Amazon. Google has all of the nascent building blocks in place: Google Wallet, Google Shopping Express, Google Shopping, Google Maps with StreetView for routing, auto…
As seamless as the front-ends of eCommerce have become, it's easy to forget how much brute force is still required on the operations side of the business.
Automated cars can make deliveries pretty easily, but they can't move merchandise in quantity between locations. The latter is the bigger barrier to scaling the system.
1) Selection - It’s easy to sell the popular stuff. It’s hard to sell the tail of demand. Aggregating together big box retailers can never compete on selection. People want to order things together, from the same place. Selection is crucial.
2) Supply Chain - It’s hard enough to have an effective supply chain when all the inventory is under your control. It will be nearly impossible to deal with N retailers supply chain systems - inventory availability, location, cross-company orders, etc and be efficient enough to make a buck.
Unless Google is willing to physically get in the game and manage some warehouses I don’t see this being much of a threat although it might provide some nice competition for next and same day orders.
quote from the article: "I’d pay 20-50% more for products just to avoid the inconvenience (and corresponding delay) in going to a physical store, like Target." i stopped reading after that.
The article does not compare apples to apples unfortunately. The author compares buying a shoe rack on Google Shopping Express to buying on Amazon. He is impressed that a plywood laminated shoe rack sourced by Target is only $12 while a bamboo shoe rack on Amazon is $20, and makes much of imagining, zomg-like, 50% savings on his Amazon purchases over the year. If you look at the same Amazon search results page where…
Personally I think fretting over three dollars on a shoerack is a bit silly, since the shoes it's holding will each be at least an order of magnitude more expensive than the rack.
Also relevant: http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/index.php/Sam_Vimes_Theory_...
There is an important point that is being missed, which is the main reason I haven't used Shopping Express: Google Shopping Express: schedule a window for delivery, during which you have to be at home. Amazon Prime: I pick it up at my convenience from my mailbox.
When you place an order, there's a checkbox to indicate whether you want to require a signature, and a blank field for delivery instructions. It's up to you: if you don't request a signature, they'll happily leave your order wherever you ask them to.
(UPS/FedEx, on the other hand, will just leave a delivery note on my door. Depending on how risk-averse the sender and driver are feeling that day, I can sometimes leave a signature for the next delivery attempt.)
If I was Amazon I'd be more worried about self-driving cars. Self-driving cars will make natural delivery vehicles. If Google partnered with local retailers to provide check-out via wallet and delivery via automated cars, it would disrupt more than just Amazon. Google has all of the nascent building blocks in place: Google Wallet, Google Shopping Express, Google Shopping, Google Maps with StreetView for routing, auto…
Same-day delivery is the next big battle in the eCommerce space, but the real challenge isn't on the delivery end. It's on the logistics and supply chain end. Amazon has been investing heavily in distribution centers, inventory management, and fulfillment. (And even Amazon has a largely expensive, small, and inefficient distribution network as compared to, say, Walmart's). As seamless as the front-ends of eCommerce h…
But nonetheless, a major distribution network needs to be in place before this can happen.. If you only want same day deliveries, you could do with maybe 20 centres in the USA and automated delivery vehicles, if you want 1-2 hour deliveries you have to be much closer. And that's where the battle for omnipresence will be won.