Google expands delivery services

This blog has covered some of the moves by Google to dabble in the shipping industry. Recently, the news was about a service in New York where users can make purchases from local brick-and-mortar businesses through Google and have them delivered the same day.

This is an expansion of the project that was started in Silicon Valley and San Francisco in September of last year. However, at the time it was believed that this was just the company's way to test the waters and the move was made more out of curiosity than as the groundwork for a future business plan.

According to a recent article from Wired, that idea may have changed. The expansion to New York is certainly a step in that direction, but Google has also announced that starting this week in Northern California, Shopping Express will expand again to include overnight delivery.

The article also mentions that Google co-founder Sergey Brin has been quoted saying this delivery service could also be a way for the company to test out its growing fleet of self-driving cars. However, these are still very much in the testing phase as the company has not solved one issue yet.

"The problem with the Google Express stuff," he said, "is there is still the dude who gets out and puts stuff on the porch."

Just because a business wants to get into the delivery service, doesn't mean that it should. Logistics is a complicated solution and a reliable 3PL provider can help any organization create a fulfillment and delivery system that makes sense.