In the quest forever faster deliveries, a slew of start up companies such as Gorillas Technologies, Jokr SARL, Getir Perakende Lojistik AS and Buyk Corp are offering local deliveries in as little as within 10 to 20 minutes of a customer placing an order.

It's a tough business.

As reported this week in the Wall Street Journal, while these consumer-friendly offerings have brought surging sales, the firms are incurring big losses due to the high cost of prolific advertising and paying couriers to hand-deliver the goods in a short time frame.

Take the cost structure for delivry company Fridge No More, as seen in the graphic below, taken from data from an investor presentation last September:

Source: Wall Street Journal

As can be seen, the sales price is basically equal to the purchase price, after which delivery and other costs take the the profit picture to a loss per order of $3.30 - before factoring in overhead, advertising, and promotional costs, such as free products.

Yikes1

We're sure there must be a profit in this somewere - for a few.

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