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WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation
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Curated by
Farid Mheir
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When Commander detects that something in the road ahead cannot be handled by itself, it gracefully transitions control to Telessist, our novel remote assistance technology. Telessist enables our robotaxi service to scale quicker, safely driving riders through any scenario that the world can throw at us.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: a very interesting article about a robot taxi system, how it works and its limitations. Fun read to understand what is possible and what is not in self driving tech today. This is important because many of digital transformation use case depend on this for profitability (for example eCommerce delivery cost should reduce drastically when this available). 
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We want to make it easier and more cost-effective for you to add maps, location awareness, and other location-based features to your web and mobile applications. Until now, doing this has been somewhat complex and expensive, and also tied you to the business and programming models of a single provider. Introducing Amazon Location Service Today […]
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: this is big news as Amazon now prepares to offer an alternative to Google maps. Based on its delivery fleet and trucks information, this solution now offers a useful solution for AWS users.
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From the top 500 report on delivery in Europe
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: 50% return rates stated as "normal" for this retailer: I find it shameful and unsustainable for many reasons (economic and environmental for starters). It is great that only 0.05% end up in the landfill but this is not the case in most organizations: returns are at best discounted and most often trashed. How can small retailers build profitable eCommerce business models when 1in2 or 1in10 orders gets returned? It may work ok for apparel or luxury or other high margins segments, but for most retailers this is not the case. Returns are a problem and they need to be addressed!
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Our ranking shows that it is not all about having absurdly fast
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: this report is Europe centric and provides some useful nuggets of information about what makes the best eCommerce retailers successful. Automation, customer service, data and analytics and many others. Nice reference to keep handy when you want to audit or plan your delivery improvements.
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So how do the UK’s largest online shops1 perform during checkout, shipping and returns? The study shows that customer centricity ends after checkout and retailers expect customers to seek information from them, rather than the other way around. As a result of this subpar after-sales support, the UK’s online retailers are throwing away millions of pounds in potential sales every month.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: this study of 100 post-checkout experiences across UK retailers applies to Quebec, Canada and US as well. Full of useful insights about free delivery, delivery selection, returns, etc.
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Micro-fulfillment technology could deliver a faster service for customers while boosting profits for retailers. Read more in this report.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: last mile delivery is the Achille's heal of eCommerce. This report provides a great overview of the micro-fulfillment solutions out there.
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Everybody likes to get a package. In 2020, we'll send more than 100 billion of them--and that number could double by 2030. Who will deliver all those packages, and how? In this edition, The Next Normal explores what's ahead in last-mile parcel delivery.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: parcel delivery has become the primary volume for postman. Why not have delivery routes - postman or milkmen - to deliver the parcels and not just the mail? Would this not be a more cost effective solution than delivering one by one?
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The rise in ecommerce caused an unprecedented surge in Amazon's volume, but it came with fulfillment challenges. The coronavirus pandemic bolstered ecommerce growth—sales grew 44.4% annually in Q2—as consumers turned to online shopping instead of brick-and-mortar amid store closures. But the milestone came with challenges in handling the surge, including delivery delays and slowed shipping speeds. Other competitors, like Walmart, were able to more effectively weather the storm because of their massive store network, so replicating competitors' strategies could help Amazon recoup lost market share and extend growth during the busy holiday season.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: Amazon will use failing and bankrupt stores and shopping malls to build warehouses so close to consumers that 1-2hr delivery becomes possible - the last hurdle in making eCommerce viable in many product categories (grocery, food, meals, and other high volume / low margin categories come to mind first of course).
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62% of US adults have preferred to buy groceries in person since the beginning of the pandemic despite nearly a quarter of them using online delivery and pickup.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: amazon appears to be testing another method of grocery fulfillment that leverages dark stores that are close to households (with dedicated staff and soon micro-fulfillment automation) and a network of freelance drivers that delivers orders in a very small area in order to solve the last remaining problem of eCommerce: delivery cost and speed.
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GCL vous propose un petit webinaire d'une heure sur les meilleures pratiques a adopter sur l'organisation de vos opérations logistique ecom.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: one of the best webinar on eCommerce fulfillment out there - in french!
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Expansion through pilot with tech company Nuro. Walmart continues expanding its Grocery Pickup and Delivery service, currently with nearly 3,100 pickup locations, and deliveries from more than 1,600 stores.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: this is the Holy Grail of eCommerce: cheap, fast, reliable delivery of orders. Looks like grocery delivery, with its high frequency and large order size is the killer app as evidenced by these many tests by Walmart and - my own opinion - the acquisition of Whole Foods by Amazon.
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A leading Canadian grocer will pilot automated fulfillment of its buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS) offering. Loblaw Inc. is building an automated picking facility to support its PC Express BOPIS service. Leveraging a hyperlocal fulfillment solution from Takeoff Technologies that functions in compact vertical spaces, Loblaw will launch the 12,000-sq.-ft. facility inside one of its GTA Real Canadian superstores in 2020.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: order fulfillment and delivery is the last remaining hurdle to eCommerce. Loblaws in Canada will pilot a micro-fulfillment solution from TakeOff that impressed me last year at Shoptalk. In short, they create an automated back-store where eCommerce orders are prepared with a huge amount of automation. The question remains whether the economics is better for micro-fulfillment or if centralized warehouse fulfillment with hub-and-spoke delivery is better suited for high volume / low margin eCommerce that grocery is about. Thus this "test" by Loblaws. Note that Sobeys has decided in favor of more centralized ocado-driven automated warehouse and Metro remains with the more traditional decentralized (and manual) store-based pick-pack-deliver process. Given the low volume of orders for online grocery in Canada I remain partisan of a store-based manual approach but the economics I got from TakeOff was promising. Below additional links if you want to read more about takeoff and ocado.
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Amazon’s business model for the device is to make deliveries within 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) from a company warehouse and to reach customers within 30 minutes. It can carry packages weighing as much as five pounds. More than 80% of packages sold by the retail behemoth are within that weight limit, Kimchi said.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: the final frontier in eCommerce is delivery to the home - the "last mile". Retailers have been great at solving technical issues around selling online and fulfilling orders cost effectively in large warehouses. Delivery remains plagued with slow and costly solutions that have not much changed since the FarWest postal delivery by horse-drawn carriage (think about it). This must change and we must apply automation, robotics and other tech to improve that and make it so that any retailer can send a parcel in few hours for as little as the cost of gas/electricity to get the parcel to the customer...
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As Amazon starts to roll out one-day shipping to its most loyal customers, it already has a logistics network spanning much of the U.S.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: delivery is the final frontier in eCommerce and Amazon has made it a lot more expensive for retailers to compete. Who else has a network of distribution centers like this? Walmart? Kroger and other large grocers? They should invest in marketplace technologies to let smaller retailers leverage their distribution network because otherwise, HOW ARE SMALL RETAILER GOING TO COMPETE AGAINST AMAZON? Once this battle is won by Amazon the last remaining blocker will be last-mile delivery and here UPS-FEDEX-USPS-CanadaPost-etc. are not making moves to cut down on costs so the land is open for a cost effective solution to emerge. Self driving cars? maybe? bringing back the milk runs? maybe. Any ideas or solutions that come to mind?
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Ready for unique insights into Canada’s e-commerce holiday landscape – and tips on how to make the most of this 2018 holiday season?
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: holiday season starts with black friday / cyber monday. Companies need to prepare to get their logistics and delivery ready. Some useful insights in this shameless plug from Canada Post...!
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Proposed facility part of push to boost online grocery fulfillment. Walmart representative said the concept marks a different grocery pickup approach and would represent its largest pickup-only site. The location also would be Walmart’s first stand-alone, drive-up grocery facility in Illinois. The building would have no customer access and house 41,700 square feet of inventory space. Signs would direct customers driving through the lot to one of three canopied pickup bays, where they would park in a designated space and have their groceries loaded into their vehicle. Customers would order their groceries as usual via the Walmart Grocery app or website and select a pickup time in one-hour windows. Pickup trips and parking spots would be coordinated to avoid congestion.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: when Walmart gets into something, you should watch out. Here it seems they are exploring options for grocery fulfillment and delivery - as everyone is trying to figure out what will customer prefer and where to make money. But the solution feels like back to the future: the concept looks like a sears pickup counter from the old days! The article also mentions some delivery options being tested by Walmart including autonomous cars and crowdsourcing.
Tuhin Islam's curator insight,
October 25, 2018 1:57 AM
Online grocery fulfilment? Can there be a Bangladesh version?
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Transformez votre vélo en véhicule utilitaire en un clin d'oeil K-Ryole est la première remorque électrique intelligente pour vélo. Conçue pour le milieu urbain, elle permet aux professionnels de transporter jusqu'à 250 kg sans effort. Pratique, écologique, économique.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: I tried this electric powered trailer at CES 2018 and it is truly amazing. Is this the missing piece in the delivery logistics nightmare of urban areas? Not sure but certainly fills a missing piece of the puzzle.
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The growth of last-mile delivery and demand for next- and same-day service is pushing logistics beyond traditional hub and spoke models to regional options, crowdsourcing, digital, and smart automation.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: delivery models are plenty and need to be expanded to reduce the cost of eCommerce deliveries.
How to Grow your Business's comment,
May 21, 2019 5:18 AM
Logistics Management Strategies & Improvement Tips https://urlzs.com/fuZW
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The last mile is seeing disruption from new business models that address customer demand for ever-faster delivery, as well as new technologies such as drones and autonomous ground vehicles.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: delivery is the last problem to solve to continue ecommerce growth. McKinsey explores the different delivery models for the last mile in this article.
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Amazon spent $21.7 billion on shipping in 2017.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY IT MATTERS: Amazon spends 14.2% of its net sales to fulfill orders and 12.2% to deliver them to consumers. Thus a quarter of the costs of products sold is allocated to logistical costs and this is the biggest hurdle to eCommerce wide adoption. Amazon and other pure plays have a number of key advantages over established brick-n-mortar retailers (no retail store costs, no store employees, etc.) but they have to battle with order preparation and delivery which traditional retailers delegate to their customers as they push their carts in the store aisle. In that context, recent announcement of Sobeys to leverage Ocado's automated warehouse technology or recent Amazon announcement to create a parcel delivery solution that competes with FedEx and UPS makes sense. Any retailer thinking of scaling its eCommerce operation should thus make sure that its business model is viable regarding fulfillment and shipping - all other elements of eCommerce are not an issue. - Amazon SWA service: http://fmcs.digital/blog/amazon-package-delivery-service-to-compete-with-fedex-and-ups-swa-ecommerce-disruption-retailapocalypse/ - Sobeys Ocado partnership: http://fmcs.digital/blog/u-k-s-ocado-taps-into-canadas-online-grocery-market-with-sobeys-tie-up-is-canada-mature-enough-to-have-automated-grocery-fulfillment-centers-ecommerce-robots/ - Ocado's technology: http://fmcs.digital/blog/video-shows-ocado-warehouse-technology-that-sobeys-has-acquired-to-prepare-grocery-orders-is-based-on-an-army-of-small-robots-working-on-3d-hive/
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An Uncertain Future: New Entrants In The #Food #Delivery Space Decline As Existing Startups Struggle
Maple's acquisition and Munchery's recapitalization highlight challenges in food delivery, with fewer fundings, increased M&A activity, and some companies ceasing operation.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT The first question a good friend of mine always asks when I come to her with this great new idea (and it happens more often than not) is: "how are you going to make money?". And she is right: if the business model is not there, then no matter how much funding you get at some point in time, you will run out and will have to close. Simple. But frustrating for an entrepreneur to hear because my ideas are so great...! That being said, I am old enough to remember the dotcom bust in 2000 and the various same-day delivery outfits that folded. Because they did not have a viable business model. So it may seem that the same has repeated here with one difference: the market is much larger than in 2000. Thus there may be some niche markets or geo that provide sufficient margins to make this a money making business. All others, see you next time. I wrote about possible doom of same day delivery in the past so you can verify that I am not just saying in retrospect but that I called the shot years ago (earliest post is in 2013). - first warning in 2013: http://sco.lt/6nkd4z - same day delivery: http://www.scoop.it/t/digital-transformation-of-businesses?q=same+day+delivery - food delivery: http://sco.lt/8tvFnl - same day not good, next day is great: http://sco.lt/4wpmQT - google same day not a great idea: http://sco.lt/67V5iz
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The Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, droid delivery systems, mobile wallets and in-store gardens should be on every grocer’s radar in the year ahead.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT WE always think of grocery as non technical and very hands-on, touchy-feely. This is becoming less and less so, a testament of the profound impact that digital technologies are having in our society at large.
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Unleash the bots! Automation has emerged as a critical issue in the US following a 2016 election that focused largely on jobs and plans to save them. Though a significant amount of attention has been directed towards autonomous driving as a potential job killer, specifically for long-haul trucking, delivery robots appear poised to go mainstream much sooner.
Farid Mheir's insight:
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT We think of robots as fixed machines that assemble cars. However, with the advances in autonomous driving we may see an explosion of delivery robots. We have seen experiments with the use of drones to deliver products (Amazon and others) and now we are seeing self driving robots appear on the streets as it is much easier to get permits for those than it is for flying objects that can crash and hurt people. This is important because delivery remains the Achille's heel of eCommerce (slow, expensive): whoever cracks this problem and comes up with a low cost and economical solution will make a killing.
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With the recent announcement of Amazon Flex and rumblings about Uber expanding into delivery, all eyes are looking at the category, wondering who will win?
Farid Mheir's insight:
Some interesting nuggets in this article: - pareto applies: 97% of eCommerce sales (295B$ of 304B$) come from 500 retailers only - shipping is marketing: Amazon recognized that free 2-day shipping for Prime customers makes for a fabulous customer acquisition tool, therefore it considers shipping a marketing cost. Plus you'll read about all the different shipping services available today.
Immigration Overseas Reviews with No Complaints,'s comment,
October 21, 2015 6:06 AM
Great Information
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Curated by Farid Mheir
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WHY IT MATTERS: anyone looking at fulfillment by amazon (FBA) should consider this reference for add-on tools.