2019 Gamechangers in the Parcel/E-Commerce Segment
There were many highly touted initiatives implemented during 2019. Here is my first pass at identifying just 6 important changes in the space.
- 777 Cargo Conversion initiative by Israel Aerospace Industries’ (IAI) Aviation Group – IAI is the first company to move forward with an accredited program to convert passenger 777 aircraft to a cargo variant. This should open the door to moving lower value, larger but lighter, e-commerce goods more cost effectively via one and two-day, express services.
- Amazon One-Day-Prime – Amazon’s massive network of forward stocking fulfillment centers and ever-growing inhouse delivery capability, enabled the e-commerce giant to provide one-day delivery more efficiently than any other carrier or on-line merchant.
- UPS Wins First Broad FAA Approval for Drone Delivery – UPS takes the lead on commercial drone delivery, in support of the healthcare industry. This will spread from the B2B to the B2C arena.
- Click and Collect – We saw retail brands across the spectrum, not just the giants, embrace click and collect on-line purchase/pick-up solutions at local stores.
- Forward Stocking Fulfillment Center Growth – The FC industry, along with commercial real estate interests, started to move towards smaller FC’s closer to the densely populated urban areas where many of those e-commerce deliveries terminate.
- Smart City Initiatives – Cities of all sizes started to look to smart technology initiatives to control traffic congestion and gridlock, which will impact carrier delivery behavior.
I would be interested in your thoughts on the subject.
CargoFish: The Containerized Parcel Utility System
5 年The drone deliveries aren't going to fly beyond a micro-niche market.? Their specific energy intensity and cost are 60 kWhr/ton-mile, and $50/ton-mile for 100% load factor, and proportionally greater for any less load.? (Of course, they are also fair weather only, low security, and high liability).? As for click-and-collect, nobody wants to have to go get their stuff, any more than they want to wait around for it, or have it left on the doorstep. People like their stuff delivered absolutely as close to point of consumption as possible, like when the waiter brings the meal to your table, and would have it that way if only they could afford it.? The smartest city initiative will be to install a delivery utility system.? How smart would it be to have a city without a water delivery system, electricity delivery system, sewage removal system, natural gas delivery system, or numerous information dispatch and delivery systems?? Almost certainly, the reason this best solution is so overlooked is because it is so little known.? Even those who have heard about very often misunderstand most of the specifics of how it will work, making it that much more difficult to grasp why it will be so far and away superior to all of the well intentioned but misguided attempts we see all around us.? Here and there I point this out, though seldom manage adequate billing in an appropriate venue to be able to provide the necessary level of detail to make it all clear.? This is sad, because this solution will result in a significant net reduction in cost, energy consumption, effluents, congestion, accidents, fatalities, and life altering injuries, but not until after its experimental implementation at least. ? Anne Goodchild, Alison Conway, Matthew W. Daus, Barbara Ivanov, Mitchell Erickson, Abdul Lateef Khalid Al-Aujan, Alexis Bateman, Yossi Sheffi, Jonathan Ratner, @Kelly Ruigrok, Johannes Bruns, Roel Gevaers, Ph.D., Jansen Weaver, Carlo Aragoncillo, Steve Berry OBE, Theo Gibson, Brian O'Connor, Stephen Baboi, Prashanth Venkataram, Christopher Flynn, Dale Cross,? Ernest Gonzales, and many others.? More than 100 killed per day in US motor vehicle accidents.? How many because of just driving out to the store and back?