In their never-ending quest to annihilate brick and mortar stores, Amazon plans to introduce same-day shipping to more of its customers soon. Customers in some select US cities already have a Local Express Delivery option if they order by certain cut off times. Brick and mortar (B&M) stores have been lobbying states to force Amazon to charge sales tax even if they do not have a physical presence in that state. In addition to lower prices, customers in many states do not have to pay any sales tax. This puts B&M retailers at a huge disadvantage.
In response to this Amazon seems to be opening up distribution centers in these states. If they have to charge sales tax, they want to offer some other value to make up for that. By opening up warehouses in various metropolitan areas their goal is to deliver you your product in a matter of hours after clicking the order button, including weekend options. By having local warehouses all over the country, the shipping costs for same day shipping shouldn’t even be that expensive. Setting up all the infrastructure will be a large investment but the payoff is the ability to buy stuff online and have it show up at your door hours later. It’s like pizza delivery but for consumer goods!
The B&M retailers might wish they hadn’t pushed so hard for this kind of legislation. Their only advantage at this point has been the ability to get what you want right away…with same day delivery you can save the gas and save the time. No word on this being offered to other Amazon sites like the Canadian Amazon.ca but I can see it being offered there for the GTA and parts of southern Ontario at least.
Source: Slate
Leave a Comment