1. Cross-border trade still stands as the big
opportunity for Australian retailers to grow
their global customer base, and although the
digital ‘umbilical cord’ connects Australian
brands with global shoppers, the delivery
experience is undoubtedly the weakest link.
I am still very optimistic and enthused
about the ‘new retail’ environment, a term
coined by NORA and since ‘borrowed’
by our friends at Alibaba. A technology-
led, customer-centric and global retail.
But innovation in payments, marketplace
platforms, digital user experience and digital
marketing have outstripped innovation in
supply chain and logistics.
I am not taking anything away from the
massive efforts and significant investments
our big carries have made. Collectively in
the billions. Similarly, I have huge respect
for the advances made by our younger
entrepreneurial start-ups. Businesses
like Zoom2U, Shippit, Shipster, Sendle,
Cohesio Group, iCumulus, Passel, to name
a few, have done an amazing job. But we
are not there yet, far from it. I sense that
there is still a disconnect at some levels
between the infrastructure-rich carriers
and the technology solutions that arise to
enable, support and enhance them. The
tugs and the tankers are not connecting at
the right level just yet. And statistics show
that e-commerce is falling over at the last
mile, somewhere between pick up and the
customer’s front door.
Again, we should acknowledge the
progress and efforts made, but encourage
and support ongoing innovation. I am also
keen to see more alliances, and as I have
written before, open minds to ‘ frenemy’
opportunities. Competitors working together
for mutual gain and to help the customer
experience along.
We have another big year ahead in
retail, with Amazon starting to flex its
muscles in our domestic environment. We
overestimated them in the short term, it
seems. Their Christmas launch was soft,
but we dare not underestimate them in the
long term. They will change the landscape.
I sense a renewed vigour in rising the
opportunities in this exciting ecosystem we
all inhabit, and look forward to seeing many
of you at the conferences coming up, and in
the year ahead.
Paul Greenberg is the founder of NORA Network.
For more information visit www.nora.org.au. ■
I
write this piece as I prepare for the Retail
Fulfilment Summit in Melbourne at the
end of February.
I have the good fortune of chairing this
summit again this year, now in its fifth year.
My key message that I take to the summit,
and I include in this article, is that supply
chain and logistics remains the ‘uncracked
code’ in my view, in e-commerce retail.
Retail in all its forms is not a simple
business. As the old well-worn saying goes,
‘retail is detail’. And never more so than
today. A multi-touch, multi-channel retail
means that good retailers are meeting their
customers where they want to be met.
Online, in-store, on marketplaces, and
increasingly on social media.
While the multi-touch customer spends
more than the uni-channel shopper,
nonetheless it is a rather atomised
environment. There is no longer a nice
river of shoppers, rather there are rivulets.
Customer expectations are rising, they are
tech-savvy and hyperconnected, and are
demanding the frictionless experiences they
are getting in other verticals.
Consider how easy it is to pay for an
Uber ride. Customers want this in retail,
too. And end-mile delivery expectations
are increasing. Certainty around delivery
windows are being demanded, in tighter
delivery bands. Short on-demand delivery –
within three hours or less – is on the rise,
and click and collect demands inventory
integrity at the store level to name a few.
“Statistics show that
the e-commerce
experience for
customers is falling
over at the last mile.
”
LAST MILE HEADACHES
PAUL GREENBERG
8 | MHD MARCH / APRIL 2018
MHD COMMENT
