Article by Andrea Zaffin commenting on the article "Technology delivered: Implications for cost, customers, and competition in the last-mile ecosystem"

The world of automation has always been a fascinating topic.

The future described in this article makes me imaging a scenario of non-stop flow of automated vehicles running up and down our streets delivering our online shopping 24/7 (yes probably we will have automated receiving areas too!) basically extending the supply chain till our doorstep.

Definitely efficient and convenient. This will give additional mileage to online increasing service and convenience to further level.

However the excitement is not without some concern for the competition off line. I think about the impact that this will have on the famous ultimate reason that make us taking time and effort to drive to a physical store: "the retail experience”.

Let’s say that walking around a mall carrying big shopping bags is not exactly the kind of “experience" we look for, so maybe this futuristic evolution driven by automated vehicles might become somehow a service to reinforce physical stores proposition too, at least in this case technology will be fairly applicable to both on and off line retailers for the benefit of all consumers.