Supply Chain Matters has always been of the belief that history provides valuable learning, especially when business process improvement and technology deployment are being considered. Thus, we wanted to call attention to a commentary featured on Strategy + Business, Navigating Retail’s Last Mile, that reflects on important learning related to online fulfillment. (Complimentary account sign-up required)
The authors revisit the past 16 years of last mile retail efforts of the late 1990’s and early 2000s, when most online start-ups struggled with the trade-off between speed and consumer choice. The commentary argues that early start-ups such as HomeGrocer, Kozmo and Webvan focused on speed at the expense of variety.
The premise is that many of the same challenges persist today, often with added Omni-channel complexities. In essence, the argument is:
“the fundamental economics of the last mile haven’t changed. Companies have to offer a solution with costs equal to or lower than the customer’s willingness to pay (the “cost to serve’)”
In its analysis, the authors conducted research on the “cost to serve” for an array of retail models including traditional physical store, curbside pickup, crowdsourced shoppers, white glove delivery and pure-play e-commerce. This was supported by a survey of 2000 online U.S. shoppers regarding shopping preferences.
Our readers are welcomed to explore the specific examples, which from our perspective, provide excellent examples of what’s involved in an effective “cost-to-serve” tradeoff analysis.
Supply Chain Matters advises readers to focus on the two key takeaways that were provided over the Strategy+Business two decade timeline. The first was clearly summarized: “The pursuit of speed without an understanding of cost led to the demise of many of the early last-mile players” Many of us in the industry analyst community have observed this lesson being replayed again over the last 2-3 years, as online retailers discovered the hard way, the unexpected hidden expenses of fulfilling online consumer demand where consumers ordered more frequently but with lower average order sizes. Often, this reflects the dynamic tension among sales and marketing and supply chain as dynamic online programs are deployed without accurate awareness or knowledge of the associated cost factors.
We would like to offer another supplemental important takeaway based on our observations of online fulfillment history. That would be that technology has also come a long way, particularly in the ability to analyze and predict cost-to-serve across various customer fulfillment channels. Technology providers have leveraged in-memory and other information management technologies that can span supply chain and customer management applications towards needs for more informed and contextual based decision-making. Teams should therefore be focusing technology strategy toward supporting more intelligent fulfillment capabilities that can provide various cost-to-serve decision-making contexts as was described in the article’s examples.
The final takeaway was that consumer behaviors will continue to change and evolve. Rather than constantly reacting to such changes, instead lead customers to online fulfillment that makes the most economic sense. The authors point to determining the most appropriate model for last-mile delivery of their goods and create a value-proposition that builds on inherent strengths. If you think about it, that is exactly what retailers such as Alibaba, Amazon, Best Buy, Restoration Hardware and Wal-Mart are currently deploying. Build on the inherent strengths that you have and lead consumers to attractive fulfillment options.
