Is same-day delivery worth it?

There has been a lot of talk in recent months about the growing need for same-day delivery. This is one of the factors that is pushing the focus on drone delivery and has been a part of new services from Google and eBay. However, is this solution something companies should be actively pursuing?

A recent article from Medill Reports Chicago examined this question and attempted to answer it. It found that deploying these kinds of systems can be a nightmare from a logistics standpoint and the main draw is the fact that e-commerce is growing and consumer want to have their items as soon as possible.

"That's what the consumer wants. Period," Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz and Associates Inc., a retail consulting firm in New York, said. "The consumer has made this clear. They want same-day."

Paula Rosenblum, a retail analyst for Miami-based market research firm Retail Systems Research, has a less optimistic viewpoint. She told the news source that there is demand for same-day delivery, but it is a niche market. To make it work, companies need to be able to pass the cost on to the consumer, which has the potential to turn them off.

Same-day delivery does have a place but it only makes sense on rare occasions, because what consumers want and what they are willing to pay for are different.

While same-day delivery may still be debatable, the need for a quality logistics system is not. Any company that needs to ship items has to focus on mobile delivery and have a strategy in place to successfully get products from one place to another.