Do you remember those fond days when a sunday trip to your local B&M retailer made sense? When driving 30 minutes to the outlet stores and joining ravenous hordes in search of the almighty deal made sense?
Those days are gone. Long gone.
Why would you go to Wal-Mart or Best Buy to shop when you can get the same thing at Amazon?
…or eBay or Groupon or Tmall or Taobao.
Don’t know those last two? You should.
In China, “Singles Day” brought in over $3,000,000,000 in sales from Taobao and Tmall (both portals of the retail giant Alibaba). This smashed the US’s digital Monday sales by over 2x*.
“Singles Day” (November 11th) was started in the 90s by Chinese college students as a twist on valentines day. The day offered great deals like 50% savings on Gap and Steve Madden products, and 70% off moisturizers and slimming belts.
Alibaba is looking to have the largest tech IPO in history estimated at $200BN.
B&M’s are fighting back. How? By trying to offer the same thing.
Currently, most major retailers offer “buy online, pick up at the store” so you’re not walking through aisles and pushing a cart. They’re not stopping there.
Retailers are looking to partner with crowdsourced dropshipping companies.
The idea is simple. Order online, have someone else go to the store pick it up to you and bring it to your house. This can work for businesses that aren’t equipped to handle their own fleet, or not large enough to need one.
Mobile plays a big role in this by allowing retailers to easily find delivery drivers and journey-plan them to locations. With a smartphone and a car, you too can be a beautiful cog in a logistics machine. Mobile makes it work.
Here are a couple cool companies we like that are helping move stuff faster and more efficiently–
Shipwire.com
Shyp.com
Deliv.com
and of course these guys — 1Dispatch.com
*source cited
- +http://adage.com/article/digital/alibaba-breaks-sales-record-china-s-singles-day/245210/
- +http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/05/07/alibaba-founder-jack-ma-once-sang-can-you-feel-the-love-tonight-in-full-hair-metal-regalia/
