After a conversation with someone about online shopping and home delivery, I turned to a fellow CSP editor and said, “My mind has been blown. There’s a small hole here in the front of my head and big hole in back.”
Disruptive technologies are blowing up not only my head but also the point-of-sale, food ordering and brand affınity. They’re about to shower millions in promotional dollars onto the c-store channel (see p. 147 for more), and they’re forcing retailers to restock, retool and reinvent.
My most recent mind-blowing chat was with a solutions provider about the supply chain. Yes, normally a barn burner of a topic, but riding the logic—or logistics, in this case—of supply-chain effıciencies leads to the concept of turning both shelf and storage space into holding areas. So stuff will start going out the back as well as the front, but in a good way.
Imagine this: For most retailers, offering home delivery is not an option. Too many details to master, more labor, no profıt. But what if a retailer were to join up with a delivery provider, say an Amazon or Uber? Instead of being shut out of the supply chain, that store could become a pickup hub and draw commission for becoming a mini distribution center—a concept chains such as 7-Eleven are dabbling with in California.
In the future of interconnected things, well-executed logistics fınds supply and transports it to where there’s demand. If the members of the Smith family reunion at a nearby park grossly underestimated their charcoal needs, why couldn’t an Uber driver run to the c-store for them? The charcoal is sitting there, waiting to move.
Now excuse me while I Uber cotton balls and gauze to plug the holes in my head.
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