Amazon Prime's one-day shipping could devastate convenience and drug stores

[Shawn Knight]

Bottom line: Amazon’s one-day Prime shipping will fit right into a society that is increasingly driven by instant gratification. It’s going to put increased pressure on other e-commerce outfits and push local retailers one step closer to irrelevance.

Amazon’s free two-day shipping perk for Prime members revolutionized e-commerce. Online shopping had been around for years but the major drawbacks for consumers were shipping costs and transit times. Unless you wanted to pay a small fortune, you often had to wait a week or longer for delivery.

Prime’s free two-day shipping effectively eliminated those shortcomings, allowing customers to predict when items would arrive and forcing the competition to step their games up.

With its latest initiative, Amazon is poised to once again shake up commerce with Prime one-day shipping.

Amazon has offered free one-day and same-day shipping to select customers in the past although the perk was limited to orders over $35. The new one-day shipping service, slowly rolling out now to customers across the country, does away with the minimum order requirement. Soon, all Prime members will be able to select from Amazon’s more than 100 million item inventory and have it show up at their doorstep (or in their car trunks) the very next day.

As Michael Krakaris, founder of e-commerce fulfillment company Deliverr, notes, Amazon has the potential to once again revolutionize commerce. “The way they're now going to think about it is… should I go to the Walgreens down the street? Or should I just buy it on Amazon?”

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https://www.techspot.com/news/80043-amazon-prime-one-day-shipping-could-devastate-convenience.html

 

[Spence1115]

We've had one day shipping in the UK for years. Hell we've had same day for a while now too. Convenience stores, pharmacists etc, all still there.

 

[brucek]

into a society that is increasingly driven by instant gratification

This particular example sounds like the reverse to me. We are moving from the former speedy but inefficient "get it right now" to a slightly slower but more efficient "get it later in the day / tomorrow."

This sounds like society evolving in a positive direction to me. A lot of needless individual trips, and their pollution, will be avoided; and many inefficient economic resources will get redeployed to more efficient ones.

 

[realestmfever]

Every time I get a one day delivery, it always becomes delayed and ends up "lost"

 

[rub900]

The price of shipping is killing Amazon. Personally I won't buy from Amazon. They crap all over workers. But hey you keep Jeff rich.

 

[treetops]

I live in the city and probably have over 5 pharmacies and 3 major grocery stores within a mile of me. Maybe even within 1/2 a mile. Bust out the drones already so I can sell my car and be flown to work by 10 worker bees.

 

[Randolph]

We've had one day shipping in the UK for years. Hell we've had same day for a while now too. Convenience stores, pharmacists etc, all still there.

Well the UK is the size of Michigan, so logistics isn't as difficult.

 

[Debanjan Dey]

The price of shipping is killing Amazon. Personally I won't buy from Amazon. They crap all over workers. But hey you keep Jeff rich.

I guess Amazon need's to follow Walmart and Target's lead in raising minimum wages, then.

Oh wait...

 

[Uncle Al]

One issue I have found and confirmed first hand. If you are a repeat buyer of a particular item Amazon will try to charge you MORE for that item. I checked it with three different accounts and found a different price for each with the price being raised for each item purchased more than once. This is especially true with clothing and the price increases have been as much as one third higher with later purchases of the exact same item. Same color, same mfg, no difference across the board other than they charge a higher price with later purchases.

 

[godrilla]

We've had one day shipping in the UK for years. Hell we've had same day for a while now too. Convenience stores, pharmacists etc, all still there.

Blockbuster, Circuit City, Payless shoe stores, Toysr'us, Barens and Noble, Sears, A&P, Pathmark, Waldbaums, Food Emporium, and probably many others are not though.
Even Victoria secret is closing some stores.

 

[Dosahka]

We've had one day shipping in the UK for years. Hell we've had same day for a while now too. Convenience stores, pharmacists etc, all still there.

Well the UK is the size of Michigan, so logistics isn't as difficult.

but don't forget that it is surrounded by water, so one day shipping from Netherlands or Switzerland or Denmark takes a bit more time and money

 

[SteveT]

We've had one day shipping in the UK for years. Hell we've had same day for a while now too. Convenience stores, pharmacists etc, all still there.

Yea but thats like sending a package to a neighboring city, try getting free 1 day shipping on 100 million items from two thousand miles away.

 

[elementalSG]

into a society that is increasingly driven by instant gratification

This particular example sounds like the reverse to me. We are moving from the former speedy but inefficient "get it right now" to a slightly slower but more efficient "get it later in the day / tomorrow."

This sounds like society evolving in a positive direction to me. A lot of needless individual trips, and their pollution, will be avoided; and many inefficient economic resources will get redeployed to more efficient ones.

I had the same thought back when online shopping really started to take off. It really was like, instead of going to store so I can have it RIGHT NOW and be instantly gratified, we were working hard on calming the urges and delaying gratification each time we ordered online, in exchange for convenience. Yet articles kept saying the world was becoming one that was all about instant gratification.

Even with 1 day shipping, it is still about 1395 minutes longer than me driving 5 min to Target or 1410 minutes longer than driving to any other store within 30 min of my apartment.

 

[TheBigT42]

The price of shipping is killing Amazon. Personally I won't buy from Amazon. They crap all over workers. But hey you keep Jeff rich.

https://arstechnica.com/information...-job-well-help-you-start-a-delivery-business/

 

[MaikuTech]

I can just see most usps and ups drivers and package handlers swearing and fussing under their breath about amazon.com.

I would still rather go into the pharmacy.
Just to make sure they fill the correct medicine right and answer questions and speak with my doctors.

 

[ckm88]

They cant even get 2 days shipping right...

 

[MaikuTech]

They cant even get 2 days shipping right...

At times amazon is a hit and miss, if its coming directly from a seller with a bad shipping reputation...
Expect problems right off the bat, if its coming directly from their warehouses.
They ship real fast if they screw up and they know they are in the wrong while packing and shipping.
They will make it up to me or partial refund what I paid for in full.

So its a give and take with them.