SCDigest editorial staff

The impact of e-commerce impact on accelerating the fulfillment cycle continues, as some retailers are now offering same day delivery for shoppers who want their goods right now.

In the dot come era, a few companies such as Kozmo.com promised to offer rapid home delivery of food, drug store and other products, but most of these services ultimately failed. The on-line grocers such as WebVan offered same day delivery based on certain cut-off windows for ordering, as do some of those remaining.

Now a small but growing number of other types of e-merchants are piloting the service themselves. Though only offered by a handful of retailers right now, mostly in just a few major markets such as New York, same day delivery is likely to grow rapidly, with many of the early pioneers say they are planning to expand to other markets soon.

The prediction – over the next few years, more and more consumers and businesses may be able to receive items at their doors within hours of ordering.

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a test of same day delivery services from a handful of on-line merchants, from Barnes and Noble to electronics e-tailer Etronics. The results were mixed, with several failing to meet the same day commitment, and users experiencing difficultly identifying products on the web site available for the same day service. Barnes and Noble’s web site, for example, notes “Same day delivery in New York” for some books along with standard shipping information.

Fees were all over the map. EdressMe.com, an on-line women’s apparel retailer, offers a “Dress to Desk” service that will deliver order items within hours to New York City customers for about $20.00. It told the Wall Street Journal it planned to add the service to other metro markets.

Among the Wall Street Journal test cases, the stand out: Teleflora, which delivered flowers just three hours after the order was placed on-line. This is perhaps unsurprising, as florists have traditionally offered same day deliveries for their own in-store customers, though in this case the order came on-line from the national web site.

The bottom line: logistics managers in many retailers and even B2B suppliers can probably expect to see this on the marketing team’s wish list very soon.

Email us at the feedback button below for a copy of the WSJ article.