The 2nd of our daily series of 7 retail industry disruptors

The 2nd of our daily series of 7 retail industry disruptors

亚马逊 's business strategy is based on one primary goal: to meet every customer need and want with a superior experience, so?Amazon becomes part of every single purchase made.

It is fair to say that today, Amazon does not do food grocery very well. In the US, it trails 沃尔玛 significantly in share. Across?Europe, while its non-food Amazon Prime offering dominates digital commerce, it’s?Fresh offering for packaged grocery items has never truly taken off. However, it would be foolish to think that Amazon isn't poised to disrupt the grocery industry.

There are many ways that Amazon could do it:

1. Their algorithmic buying technology?could?change the way products are bought and sold between manufacturer and retailer

2. They?could?acquire any or many of the?publicly?listed retailers or CPG manufacturers and quickly build a vast?physical, owned?manufacturing and retail business

3. They?could?double down on their investments?into?the evolving?Last Mile Delivery industry, either by acquiring Deliveroo , Getir , Instacart , DoorDash or Uber , or by investing heavily into Amazon Flex

4. They?could?continue their drive to dominate the advertising?industry?and the way consumer products are marketed via Amazon Ads

5. Amazon Web Services (AWS) Predictive Analytics?could?change the way that products are planned, forecasted, produced, distributed and ranged in?supermarkets and other retailers.

There are also some things that Amazon are already doing that could prove equally, if not more disruptive:

Amazon’s Just Walk?Out ('JWO') stores were written off as a fad by many. But, with 特易购公司 , Sainsbury's ’s and ALDI Stores Australia among many launching JWO stores, and with many other retailers looking at launching the format, a fundamental shift in the way we shop is likely. For a relatively small investment, any retailer could reduce staff count, eliminate theft issues and increase their profitability dramatically. Offering JWO products via Amazon Marketplace will also open up a much larger potential customer base without?significant cost and will further increase the range offered via Amazon to the?market, including groceries.

Amazon becoming a logistics and delivery partner will also cause significant disruption. Amazon’s fleet of delivery vans alone is huge. This capability will soon be offered to retailers of all shapes and sizes, providing rapid, local collection of products listed and sold via Amazon Marketplace, with near immediate local delivery or next day delivery further afield offered through Prime. Amazon can easily offer this service cheaper than traditional 3PLs and without the added cost of the rapid grocery delivery?companies. This capability will allow any retailer, and particularly grocery stores, the opportunity to sell and deliver?locally in a short period of time and at low cost. The attractiveness of this to customers vs. traditional?grocery.com?delivery or click and collect is obvious.

Amazon Marketplace has broken down traditional barriers to entry for suppliers across all categories. Today the only barrier to entry is the capability to deliver directly to the customer.?Unfortunately this is a capability that most large manufacturers do not have, but that all digitally-native start-ups and challenger brands do. Every day that established brands delay in building this capability is a day that competitors and new entrants are gaining sales and share.

With their JWO technology, logistics and marketplace, Amazon are already making it possible for any retailer to sell any product to any customer in any market. That includes food products. How long will it be before you can order groceries on Amazon Marketplace and have them delivered to you, in an Amazon van, within an hour? We would suspect it will be a matter of 'when, not if' this will happen. At that point savvy convenience shops, petrol forecourts and corner shops will be able to compete with supermarket chains for online customer orders, and Amazon will be one step closer to being part of every single purchase made.

So, what should the smart manufacturer do about it?

In the short term, if you want to capitalise on this opportunity you should be investing in distribution in convenience stores, petrol forecourts and neighbourhood stores. In the longer term, it is increasingly likely that marketplaces will become highly influential across your digital channel mix. At what point will you?build the capability required to satisfy those, and other digital commerce customers? The same capability can be used to satisfy the B2C, B2B, B2SME, B2Foodservice, B2OOH, DTC, Quick and Social Commerce channels. Isn’t it time you started looking at either flexing your?existing supply chain, or finding a partner capable of providing small batch fulfilment capability to you?

Amazon might not be great at food now, but, because of the disruption you might have missed, it is only a matter of time before they are. When they are, will you be ready?