One Hour Shipping and More

Amazon has announced one hour delivery for Manhattan and it's only $7.99 called Prime Now. Not in a rush? If you can wait two hours, Amazon Prime customers can get two hour delivery for free. This service will be available 6am to midnight daily; those hours are significant longer than most retail stores (besides superstores). But of course, the products sold through Prime Now are limited (but I'm not positive what is included). While only available in a very small area right now, one can easily see how this could readily spread to areas where Amazon warehouses are near.

Since I grew up around with Chinese restaurants that offered delivery, I always wondered why retail stores did not do the same even for a decent fee for their products. This probably didn't happen since retailers did not have to compete against the likes of Amazon. The brick and mortar retailers' advantage of having products immediately on hand is slowly dwindling; first, it'll eliminated in densely populated cities. With the help of localized transportation (e.g. drones), the less populated area will eventually receive faster delivery times.

Chains like Best Buy have to compete with comparable services to Amazon Prime Now. They could partner up with taxi companies or similar delivery services (e.g. Uber) to offer faster delivery rather than going through the hassle of creating new delivery positions (which may not make sense financially). Of course, UberEssentials is the experiment for this. But in my opinion, Uber should partner up with major retailers (e.g. Best Buy, CVS, Meijer, Walmart) to offer a service people would use consistently. This would be easier logistically since these retailers have inventory in-store and would take advantage of their existing infrastructure.

Consumers will have to decide if the delivery fees are worth the time and effort saved. Retailers will have to convince consumers that it is worth it. Giving customers more options on how to shop is beneficial for the both sides.

The way we shop will continue to change. I've already switched to majority online shopping for the holidays. Amazon has certainly not won that race (yet).