Last week, on-demand food delivery company JOKR said it was shuttering its New York and Boston businesses and leaving the US market altogether, with the focus now being on Latin America.

The announcement did not surprise Brittain Ladd, a former Amazon exec and supply chain consultant.

In a LinkedIn post, he said: “I recommended to JOKR to sell their operations in the US, and instead focus on Latin America and Mexico.”

“They contacted me to say that they were "disappointed" by my suggestion and that I "didn't understand their strategy." Actually, I understood their business and the reality of the rapid grocery delivery industry better than their senior executives did.”

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Ladd believes that the rapid grocery delivery industry will evolve to become the rapid retail delivery space due to the growth of e-commerce and the desire for speed on the part of consumers.

The latter will begin to ask this question: Why can I receive my groceries in 15 minutes, but I can't receive cosmetics, apparel, shoes, electronics, and other products in the same time period?

“Logistics networks aren't setup to deliver retail products the same day, let alone in 15 minutes. However, that's changing,” Ladd wrote.

He flagged up the fact that Davinci Micro Fulfilment is opening 750 to 1,000 automated MFCs by 2030. The company has four active installations underway.

Amazon, meanwhile, is investing heavily in opening automated MFCs to fulfil orders from stores and from stand-alone MFCs. Amazon will open MFCs nationwide, Ladd states.

CPG companies and brands want to go direct to customers to bypass retailers. Instead of relying on Amazon or Walmart to fulfil orders, they're looking for an alternative option. The option is micro-fulfilment, Ladd argues..

DoorDash, Gopuff, Shopify, Instacart, and Uber are all actively exploring robotics and automation for fulfilment.

Instead of these companies fulfilling their own orders, they can partner with a company that offers Micro-fulfilment as a Service.

Ladd said: “Orders can be fulfilled and picked up by employees from the companies I listed. It is the fastest and cheapest fulfilment model. In addition, MFCs can carry over 10,000 SKUs increasing revenue opportunities.”

“Automated MFCs are able to fulfil chilled, frozen, and ambient temperature products. This means a consumer can order a variety of products and have them delivered with precision in a few hours.”

He concluded: “Retailers have to sell more products to customers and deliver them faster. Automated micro-fulfilment centres are the ideal mechanism for fulfilling the orders.”

“Deliveries can be assigned to any number of carriers. Consumers won’t be waiting much longer for faster deliveries of the retail products they want most.”

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