F E AT U R E
21
THE FUTURE OF
T R A N S P O R TAT I O N
I S LO O K I N G G O O D
By Andrea Obston
Director of Public Relations, CLDA
How will the continued growth of
e-commerce impact our industry?
How will local providers cope with
The Amazon Effect? How do provid-
ers know when a new opportunity is
right for them?
These are the kinds of questions
tackled by a panel of industry leaders
at the CLDA Annual Meeting. They
polished up their crystal balls for a
sneak peek at our industry’s future
and found good news.
Led by moderator Chris MacKrell
of Custom Courier Solutions, t he
panel included: Jim Berluti, VP
Sales, US , Dicom and Founder/CEO
Eastern Connection; Steve Wilson,
Ecommerce Analyst at Tompkins
International and Brian Surber,
Priority Dispatch, VP Operations.
and other on-line retailers under-
stand the compelling need for local
inventory. They know they need to
keep up with customer expectations
(yes, they, too, are wrestling with The
Amazon Effect). And they under-
stand that they will need fulfillment
centers near their customers to lower
their delivery costs and make same-
day feasible. They are already doing
that. But here’s the opportunity for
the rest of us right now: those fulfill-
ment centers haven’t all been built
so they can be located where they
make the most sense: in and near
local markets. Amazon has already
begun that process in larger markets,
but they won’t get to the smaller
ones for a while. There’s a window
MacKrell: No one can look into
the future of this industry without
talking about the impact of e-com-
merce. Talk about that:
Wilson: Nobody’s going to go back to
the brick and mortar model of retail-
ing and that’s good news for those
of us in the transportation industry.
The package delivery numbers gen-
erated by e-commerce are incred-
ible. The volume will force us to
consider new financial models and
to ultimately confront the need to
build fulfillment centers to support
e-commerce. We know Amazon
of opportunity for local and regional
delivery companies.
Amazon is also selectively in-sourc-
ing parts of their supply chain.
They are shipping directly to some
of your hubs. They are inducting
into the postal system. They are
doing deliveries of food through
Amazon Fresh and offering one
Customized Logistics and Delivery Association | Fall 2016