The New Generation Of Logistics: How Laziness Fuels The World

Logistics is as old as the world is. It follows the same process of evolution, as every other market, caused by one of the strongest human part of nature – laziness.

To sell something (before the Internet became ubiquitous) you had to hand it to the customer. So from the darkest past, people supplied commodities from city to city, from country to country. Trading has made a lot of people rich and famous.

The Evolution Of Logistics

So let’s take a look on how the process looks now & how it’s going to evolve:

Did you heard about silk road? Of course you did. Did you know it is about 12 thousands kilometres long? The caravan of merchants carrying tons of silk, iron and paper were traveling half a year from east to the west. This is kind of a work and travel experience but still exhausting and dangerous. In 1650 the sea route to the China was discovered and the silk road lost its then current status. It happened because of 3 main reasons, that are still the core of this business:

1. Time
2. Safety
3. Money

After the discovery someone thought “hmm it would be much easier (money) if I could stay in one place (safety) and sell from there, letting someone else bring me the goods (time). From then on shops poured fuel into engine logistics.

Soon it was time for the internet, which made it possible to deliver directly to the customer’s doors. And again it has changed the rules of the game. Shopping became simplified to a few clicks in the browser, and transport from the warehouse to the customer’s home.

The highly competitive ecosystem caused that this kind of delivery to become more and more unprofitable. People still want to buy on the internet. But they also want to have free or at least cheap delivery solution. Moreover, they want to pick up their shipment at a convenient moment. Almost 50% of boxes are not picked up upon the first delivery. It’s generating huge costs.

The Solution For Delivery Companies

The answer to that are logistics stations, located near the customer’s home with 24/7 access. It solves two significant problems:

First of all it reduces cost of delivery up to 70%. Secondly it gives the customer free choice of when to pick up their order – they can simply access it when it’s most conveiniant for them. Of course it requires some additional effort but it is still much more comfortable than many scheduled meetings with couriers which might end up in no delivery at all. As those stations make logistics cheaper and faster, we can predict they’re going to revolutionize the business.

Now you have logistic stations dedicated to e-commerce, food, even for laundry.

Maybe you have some new idea that can revolutionize this business. A terminal for heavy goods like TV’s, or bikes? A terminal for borrowing books? Or maybe you have some other ideas? Share them in a comment!

And remember, this is right time to start thinking about this challenge seriously!

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Photo credit: Glyn Lowe Photoworks. via VisualHunt.com / CC BY