The articles in the two urls below (which appeared soon after each other, either side of Black Friday in the NYT) indicate some of the consequences of the growth in online purchases that need to be delivered to our houses. The first article discusses the closure of a convenience store in Manhattan that appears to offer everything you would want in a neighborhood store:
"On Ninth Avenue in Manhattan, not far from where I live, there's a small neighborhood hardware store called Chelsea Convenience Hardware. … Inside, tools and supplies are piled to the ceiling, and when you enter, the owner, Naum Feygin, an immigrant from Boris Yeltsin's Russia, looks up to ask you what you need. The 'convenience' in the store's name is no misnomer, for the place is extraordinarily efficient. It is cheaper and faster than ordering from Amazon and offers expert advice that reduces the risk of buying the wrong thing. It is all too easy on Amazon, for example, to buy halogen bulbs that don't fit your lamp base; Mr. Feygin has spared me many such headaches. And the store's small size is a virtue: Unlike at Home Depot, you can be in and out in 10 minutes."
In spite of being more convenient, Mr Feygin's store is in trouble and is due to close. The author argues this doesn't make sense, but is also symptomatic of the online shopping world in which we now live:
"The closing is of no great economic significance, other than to Mr. Feygin. But it is a microcosm of the forces reshaping the United States economy, often paradoxically and for the worse. Why is a less efficient, less personalized and more wasteful way of buying screws and plungers — ordering online — displacing the local hardware store?"
The author answers his own question by arguing it is the perception of convenience (rather than actual convenience) that appears to be driving more people to prefer to shop online:
"Here we can see how an ideology of convenience is reshaping the economy. Ordering things like tape or bolts online is rarely cheaper or faster than popping down to the local hardware store — not to mention the wasteful packaging — but many of us do it anyhow. Clicking on a product from the comfort of your couch seems more convenient — and that impression of ease can have more influence on our behavior than better service, quicker acquisition and lower prices."
Mr Feygin sums this up more succinctly:
"'Amazon, eBay,' he explains. 'People ordering without advice.' They might not get what they need, but still they order online."
The second article comments on a more surprising consequence of our online economy (at least in terms of the scale of the problem). It reports the massive number of packages that go missing on a daily basis in the U.S. I was shocked to see the number of packages that never arrive in Manhattan:
"In New York City, where more orders are delivered than anywhere else in the country, over 90,000 packages a day are stolen or disappear without explanation, up roughly 20 percent from four years ago, according to an analysis conducted for The New York Times."
But, this is not just a big-city phenomenon:
"About 15 percent of all deliveries in urban areas fail to reach customers because of package theft and other less frequent issues, like deliveries to the wrong house, according to transportation experts. In suburbs and rural areas, thieves often follow delivery trucks and snatch just-delivered packages from homes, often out of sight of neighbors."
The result is what must be a major headache for Amazon (and other online retailers):
"Around the country, more than 1.7 million packages are stolen or go missing every day – adding up to more than $25 million in lost goods and services, according to an analysis for The Times. … In a new survey by insuranceQuotes.com, an online insurance service, nearly 1 in 5 respondents nationally reported having had a package stolen."
The article contains some of the solutions both people receiving the packages and the companies sending them are trying to implement in response. Although there is not much data to go on, however, it appears to be a problem that is increasing and is set to get worse:
"Most police departments do not track package thefts, but those that have examined the problem have reported notable increases. The Denver Police Department started compiling data on package thefts in 2015, and has seen a 68 percent increase in reported cases, to 708 last year, from 421 four years ago. In Washington D.C., 1,846 cases of package theft were reported as of mid-November, already exceeding last year's total of 1,546 cases, according to police records."
Take care
David
David Chandler
© Sage Publications, 2020
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Better, Cheaper and Faster than Amazon
By Tim Wu
November 24, 2019
The New York Times
Late Edition – Final
SR10
Battling Thieves, When 90,000 Packages a Day Go Missing
By Winnie Hu and Matthew Haag
December 3, 2019
The New York Times
Late Edition – Final
A21
