The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Amazon and Rivian are in talks to end their electric cargo van exclusivity agreement. If the report is true, Rivian will need to find additional commercial customers to purchase their vans. I don’t anticipate that will be too difficult for Rivian to do based on the quality of their vans. In addition, I’m sure Rivian can also offer passenger vans.
An interesting option that I encourage Rivian and Amazon to pilot is mobile retail whereby delivery vehicles become digital stores on wheels. Instead of just delivering Amazon packages to customers, Amazon should provide customers with the ability to “hail Amazon to their home” in the form of Rivian vans stocked with a curated list of products and segmented by category. For example:
- Health and Beauty
- Baby and Child
- Pharmacy and OTC Medicine
- Snacks
- Fruits and Vegetables
- Meat
- Milk, Eggs, Dairy
The company that I believe has created the best platform for what I describe is StreetLogic®, which uses AI to proactively send in-moment messages that offer real-time inventory to nearby customers for immediate purchase. Customers can also hail a van anytime they want using the app.
What I like most about the concept of mobile retail/storefronts is that it significantly increases the opportunity to interact with a large number of customers. Mobile storefronts can effectively service customers up to 5 miles from a supply hub – Amazon Delivery Station, retail store, micro fulfillment center:
3 Miles Drive Radius = 87,314 Potential Customers
5 Miles Drive Radius = 252,662 Potential Customers
A challenge faced by Amazon is that they don’t have many physical grocery stores. Using this concept, Amazon can brand Rivian vans as Whole Foods or Amazon Fresh, and provide customers with more than just traditional online grocery ordering and delivery. Note to Amazon: If you don’t pilot this, Walmart, H-E-B, Albertsons, Chewy, Kroger, 7-Eleven, Target, Shipt, Instacart, Tesco, Deliveroo, DoorDash, or Uber will.
If Amazon and Rivian don’t partner, I strongly recommend that BrightDrop, BIB Technologies (Business-in-a-Box), and/or Clevon partner with StreetLogic.
I also believe quick service restaurants like Chick-fil-A Restaurants, Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, Shipley Do-Nuts (my favorite), McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell, and CPG companies like Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and especially PepsiCo, should explore the concept of mobile storefronts to put their brands in front of more customers. Convenience store retailers like Casey’s, Circle K, Yesway, Wawa, Inc., RaceWay, RaceTrack, Kum & Go, Maverik, Inc., Sheetz, etc., are ideal for using mobile storefronts.
By 2025, over 80% of retailers want to offer same-day delivery. Instead of delivering a package, retailers should deliver a version of their store to their customers.
