The answer lies in intricate technological innovations, and a race between online shopping giants to be the first retailer offering a reliable same-day delivery service across the globe.
How It Started
First-Class Innovations
In order to enhance their delivery speeds, online stores faced many technical challenges. One of these challenges involved extensive research into determining the cut-off point at which companies could still guarantee delivery within increasingly short time-frames. Since warehouses and headquarters are often positioned miles away from each other, this was no easy task.
The Unlikely Participant in the Race for Same-Day Delivery
In 2010, the USPS was in decline. It had made a $16 billion dollar loss in one year and the media began speculating about its demise, wondering if it would jettison some of its speedier services in order to save money. On the contrary, by 2012, there was word that the USPS was trialing an experimental same-day delivery service. Now, the former national embarrassment was overtaking the most cutting-edge of tech companies in the same-day delivery race.
Hot On the Heels
What Does Same-Day Delivery Mean for High-Street Shopping?
The novelty and convenience of physically owning an item the moment you buy it has long been seen as the major benefit high street stores have over online retailers. But this advantage seems to be losing value, especially when you consider the online successes of recent Black Friday sales. Now consumers don’t have to hit the high street to get a product on the same day, is the high street model doomed to irrelevance? So, perhaps same-day delivery does not spell the end of high street shopping; but could it be a gateway for online retail behemoths to close-in on their high street counterparts?
