Delivery wars: Google follows Amazon with same-day delivery expansion
By Nathaniel Mott at Pando (originally published on May 5, 14)
Google today announced that it has expanded its same-day shipping platform, which delivers items bought from retail partners like Costco and Walgreens, to Los Angeles and Manhattan. The service’s expansion follows a similar announcement from Amazon, which will now make same-day deliveries in cities like San Francisco, Dallas, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Baltimore.
The announcements demonstrate the importance of delivery infrastructure to ecommerce efforts. These companies have been striving towards same-day deliveries for a while; now that they’ve figured out how to operate them in a few cities, they’re ready to expand. It’s not yet changing the way most people shop — people do live outside the coasts, after all — but the expansions let Google and Amazon experiment with services that could make a huge impact in the future.
Consider Amazon Fresh, the grocery service that could eventually allow Amazon to become a one-stop shopping destination. Expanding the service requires the creation of a new delivery infrastructure that will allow it to deliver meat and vegetables with the same ease with which it delivers books and video games. Amazon and Google have the ambitions, and these announcements are the first step forward to making those a reality…
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