I greatly appreciate being the first return guest for the wonderful Fulfillment IQ podcast. Special thanks to Harshida Acharya, Dan Coll 🛒📦🚀 and Ninaad Acharya for asking me to return.
A few comments:
✅ Amazon needs physical stores. An acquisition of Target within a couple of years of acquiring Whole Foods Market would have been a wise move by Amazon.
✅ I believe the best move for Amazon to make now is to acquire Trader Joe’s. Trader Joe’s is a perfect fit for Amazon and it complements Whole Foods Market.
✅ Another option is for Amazon to open Whole Foods+ stores which would operate like a tradional supermarket.
✅ Many grocery retailers are questioning the need to offer online grocery ordering and delivery when it’s only 10% of their business, and is projected to only be 15% to 20% of their business by 2030.
✅ Instacart should change their business model. They should convince their grocery retail partners to outsource their online and curbside business to Instacart. This will allow grocery retailers to focus on their stores. Consumers who want online delivery will order their groceries through Instacart, and Instacart will deliver the groceries.
✅ Whole Foods Market can partner with Ocado Group or AutoStore™ to open automated micro-fulfillment centers (MFC). Instacart can also partner with Fabric, Brightpick, Takeoff Technologies, Inc., Attabotics Inc., Exotec, Addverb, and other vendors.
✅ Each MFC can fulfill orders for multiple grocery retailers. This is an efficient and low-cost model for fulfillment.
✅ Each MFC can hold traditional groceries from the leading brands (Tide, Coke, Skippy Peanut Butter, etc.) plus private label brands from Instacart’s retail customers.
✅ Instacart can also use their same model but fulfill orders for their customers from MFCs instead of from inside stores.
✅ Outsourcing fulfillment to Instacart is a much better and cheaper model for the grocery industry, and a more profitable model for Instacart. If Instacart does this, the valuation of the company will skyrocket. Fidji Simo Nick Giovanni Asha Sharma
✅ India is a Tiger cub at the moment. By 2030, India will have made enough logistics infrastructure and port improvements to become a leading manufacturing destination similar to China’s model.
✅ India should immediately invest in building manufacturing plants in Mexico. There are several key partnerships India can form to do this. This is a great way for India to become an alternative to Chinese manufacturers. It’s also an easy way for India to develop relationships with brands and retailers that need manufacturing services.
✅ There is a growing Indian population in the USA. Instead of importing so much from India to the USA, manufacturing certain products in Mexico should be a first step for Indian investors and industrial entrepreneurs.
