Amazon’s Express Goes From Overnight to Same Day
When most consumers
think about getting an express delivery from a website, it’s overnight.
Amazon.com is in the process of changing that, at least in seven major
cities, with the launch of its same-day “Local Express Delivery” service.
Consumers in Baltimore, Boston, Las
Vegas, New
York, Philadelphia, Seattle and Washington
D.C. can now get same-day service with Chicago, Indianapolis
and Phoenix to be added in future months. Amazon Prime members
can receive orders the same day for a fee of $5.99 per item.
“We
want to make online shopping as convenient as possible," said Girish
Lakshman,
vice president of transportation at Amazon, in a press release.
"We’re continuously working to speed up delivery times and customers
receiving items on the same day as ordered is an exciting step.
Now, if a customer needs a last-minute present for a birthday or
wants a copy of their book club book before the weekend starts,
they can order from Amazon instead of the hassle of a last-minute
trip to the mall."
Amazon
has also upgraded other delivery options. Shoppers who order items
on Thursday and request two-day delivery will now receive items on
Saturday instead of Monday.
Discussion
Questions: What will same-day delivery do for the consumer perception
of Amazon.com? What will it mean for actual sales in the markets where
it is offered?
Amazon is a great example of a company that is intent on creating customer-service levels that are beyond people’s expectations. They are not perfect; they are almost impossible to reach by phone if you have a problem. But they focus on what they think the largest group of consumers desire, and that is great service and instant gratification.
Offering same-day service in these designated urban settings takes any hesitation away that a consumer might have in ordering a product. When you consider the cost of gas, parking and most importantly, an individual’s time, offering same day service at $5.99 for prime customers is a great bargain! And it provides the consumer the instant gratification that many desire.
Barnes and Noble has to be concerned about this initiative, and Best Buy will need to watch this as well.
Amazon is just plain clicking!
Of any of the experiences I’ve had of late, they certainly win the ‘most improved’ award, if that were possible. My early experiences with Amazon were dismal at best. They were priced beyond the value of the convenience, the service was poor and delivery was never when expected.
I can’t explain what caused me to try them again after those experiences, except for the fact that they actually had a car wax available which was long gone from anyone’s shelves in my area. I gave it a shot. Turned out well. Tried them again, turned out better. And again, and again…now they are my first stop online. Even without a purchase, the information available on products sets a benchmark.
This move alone sets up my perception that they can only get even better. If anything, it’s a lesson that a retailer can improve, redeem themselves and succeed beyond my expectations. They continue to meet them consistently and this would give them an even better edge.
Have these guys ever had a misstep? Incredibly smart, coupled with their new Amazon remembers app on iPhone that lets you scan an item and order instantly. A game-changer.
This is a bold move by Amazon that will be welcomed by consumers. It adds a new wrinkle in Amazon’s quest to become the “go to” retailer for many items. Consumers can now opt for everything from free shipping to expedited shipping to same day delivery, all using Amazon’s easy one-click-to-buy ordering. Great move by Bezos and company.
Just as Zappos upped the baseline for shipping and returns, the long-lasting effect of Amazon’s latest will be agita for its competitors! Now, even retailers’ site-to-store turnaround will look clunky by comparison.
I agree that same-day shipping will remove the final obstacle to ordering from Amazon…well, the near final. I still find their search function unwieldy and often inaccurate. Even though Amazon offers tons of specialty foods that I can’t get where I live, for example, the prospect of hunting them down in Amazon usually has me cobbling together orders from individual specialty sites.
First blush reaction is that the practical difference between same-day and next-day delivery for 95%+ of the items ordered from Amazon is meaningless.
But that may not be the important point. The perception created by having a same day service option could be huge. For those shoppers who have gotten past the “need to see it and touch it to decide” issues of online shopping, this could be the final hurdle. No waiting.
How does Amazon plan to pull off delivery for $6 though? Is this a third party arrangement? We worked for this company that promised delivery of any sized order within an hour in NYC once. Their unpaid invoices turned into a nice tax deduction after the bankruptcy.
Continuous improvement…”Getting Better at Getting Better” is what they demonstrate to their customers. Builds loyalty, doesn’t it?
I have a really different take on this.
Amazon wants to be in the grocery delivery business…but success (i.e. profitability) at home delivery depends a lot on delivery density.
So I think Amazon is taking this opportunity to get a base of orders to deliver, in preparation for expanding its grocery delivery business in those cities.
In and of itself, it’s a KILLER advantage against other online retailers.
Amazon has always done a great job of getting and then staying close to its customers. Their entire system, save telephone contacts, is designed to delight the customer. This is a terrific example of addressing an area of customer compromise. While most customers do not need the same-day delivery, some do and Amazon has solved this problem.
The lesson for every marketer is to follow the Amazon model of constantly and consistently staying close to its customers, discovering compromises, and addressing same, well ahead of the competition. Solving the customer’s problem or compromise will allow you to solve your problem of realizing profitable sales.
There are three fundamental components to the retail process:
1. Getting a meeting of the minds, i.e., closing the sale.
2. Delivering: transferring from the seller to the buyer.
3. Payment: movement of cash or the consideration.
Amazon has willy-nilly mastered the most important piece, number 1, closing the sale. Number 3 is a sophisticated no-brainer in this age of electronic banking. This leaves delivery as their final barrier to dominating retail, making Walmart look like pikers.
If Walmart ever figures out what Amazon knows about selling, Katie bar the door. Don’t overlook that Walmart is using DSIQ for their Smart Network assessment AND that the top technical talent at DSIQ moved from Amazon to DSIQ. However, that doesn’t mean Walmart recognizes the similarity of SELLING (#1 above) online and offline (in the store.) Peter Fader and Wendy Moe have a chapter on this in my book, Inside the Mind of the Shopper.
Link all this with social media and you have a very potent brew.
(BTW, the “Quick trip” will always be the bastion of the offline, bricks-and-mortar retailer. At least until IBM’s teleportation project is handling delivery. 🙂
This is, in my opinion, a very big deal. One of the main reasons that consumers opt for 4-wall over e-tail is the immediate gratification of taking the product home with them. Amazon may not have entirely eliminated this reason, but they are certainly getting very, very close.
This should mark a significant jump in revenues, coming right out of the 4-wall community for the reasons cited above–no gas, no traffic, no parking, etc.
Now if they can come up with a way to virtually “touch” the product, they will move into a whole new level. I’m sure they’re working on that.
While this is great for those people in the large markets, for people in my area we still can’t get the standard delivery in less than a week. Amazon uses a third party to move items from their warehouse to a post office in the area of the customer. In our market these items sit on a loading dock in Fort Worth until there are enough of them to ship to the local post offices. This might be three days or three weeks.
Until Amazon can fix that kink in its distribution channel, they cannot fully command the online market. Other online retailers are able to get products to those of us in outlying areas much faster.