Earlier this week there was an article in the WSJ regarding a new Amazon service called Amazon Locker Delivery. The concept is pretty simple … allow customers to pick up their orders at a convenient location. The concept is the same as having a PO box at the post office, at a UPS Store or at a FedEx Office. But Amazon is paying rent at convenience stores, supermarkets and other retail locations.
And others are also doing this.
Why mention the concept?
A challenge for a number of distributors is how to extend their reach without having physical locations … sometimes in preparation of expanding into an area, sometimes to service current customers or, in the case of one distributor we were talking to, extending their reach to smaller contractors who won’t frequent a downtown location.
Amazon Lockers uses a PIN number, which is changed for each customer, with the customer receiving the number via email.
Consider if a distributor contracted for space “around a city”, made deliveries at night and throughout the day and customers could pick up their orders on their time (and the orders could be placed by calling inside sales or more desirably, through a distributor’s website). This would be taking the “hub and spoke” or satellite location concept another step and be another service to differentiate a distributor to the contractor market (or maybe only make it available to customers who do a minimum of #x?)
If Amazon can do it, can’t electrical distributors? Is this a way to develop a remote servicing capability?
5 Comments
GE Supply attempted this in the early 90’s without much success and abandoned the concept. Perhaps the times have changed.
Many industries have tried and failed at the concept. The office supply industry tried and for the most part they carry small items that would fit in a locker. I had many years in the industrial tool side and this is popular with integrator’s within a manufacturing facility. The concept sounds good until you price one of these units. For example a locker unit like what you saw in the WSJ article would run at least $50k. The question then becomes how do you pay for it?
can they handle 1000 feet of 500 mcm — or how about a 75 kva transformer or just maybe 500 feet of 1/2 inch emt — well just something to think about
Interesting concept. I had my team brainstorm this for a little bit to see if it could work. While it isn’t right for every customer, they came up that with the growth in public storage facilities and technology (security cameras, remote locks) this could work, or we could acquire some cheap space and set up some “cages” that could be specific to a contractor. Would need to get some customer commitments to get it started, or use the concept to support a remote salesperson. The storage companies only charge $80-150 per month depending upon the unit size. we already sell security cameras. just need to find a lock system that we can remotely change. Doesn’t work for items that should ship directly to a jobsite, but could work for discretionary orders. I also find it interesting that because it didn’t work before it won’t work now. Hope my competitors continue to think like that
back in the 90’s technology wasn’t what it is today, now what i see, is more mobile transactions and product finds that make it more convenient for end users… “free tip of the day”
Leave a Reply
Trending Now
Knight Joins IDEA as President
