It’s not just Amazon who have the strategy of daily deliveries in their own vans direct to our houses. Tesco are now taking a similar tack and they already have a lot of vans delivering groceries each week.
The simple strategy of both companies is to be able to supply/deliver everything that you could possibly want to buy. Tesco started with groceries and their own products but have now added other sellers so that 250,000 lines could be “Delivered by Tesco”. Amazon started using Amazon branded vans for non food items although their big push will be in fresh foods followed by anything that is used regularly such as nappies and washing powder. Once the daily service is in place it’s easy to deliver almost anything, perhaps even medical prescriptions, letters and parcels. The strategy could be the only way to make home delivery reasonably profitable.
The potential impact on logistics companies and postal services could be as significant as the impact on a wide range of retailers with and without physical stores. If all the more dull products end up being delivered in this way it makes it even more important for physical stores to create an interesting and rewarding buying experiences and to add other revenue generating services to their stores. The next three years could easily result in even more changes for retailers than the last three did.