Smarter people than I have observed that delivery and direct-to-consumer companies are going to thrive in the aftermath of this pandemic. It’s the platforms and at-scale logistics companies that are going to really own it: Walmart, Amazon, etc, as well as Instacart, Doordash, and Uber Eats.
But what about all of the businesses (and business types) not served by today’s delivery platforms?
There’s a big opportunity for enterprising logistics entrepreneurs to help non-served businesses adjust to a delivery-type economy.
Who will help replace farmer’s markets with direct farm-to-table deliveries (loved a suggestion for “fruit and vegetable truck” counterpart to ice cream truck)? Who will help boutique clothing or arts stores deliver their wares? Flower stores? Smoothie shops?
Instead of you going to the business, it will be the business coming to you. But unless small local businesses make the transition well, it’s going to be a much smaller set of much bigger businesses who come knocking. If there was a cheap, simple platform for businesses to engage to “mobilize” their product or service and connect it to locked-down buyers, a lot more of these boutique businesses could survive.
