The holiday shopping season can be hectic and stressful, especially when dealing with shipping presents on time. When it comes to reliability and confidence, most customers trust Amazon the most, according to a report in The New York Times.
The company has made a point to try and minimize the time between when someone orders an item and when it arrives on their doorstep. To facilitate this, Amazon has strategically built warehouses in 30 states and has come up with a proprietary and effective delivery system.
According to research firm Rakuten Intelligence, Amazon’s online sales will grow almost 50 percent during the holiday season. Kenneth Cassar, an analyst with Rakuten, said speed is a key factor in why Amazon is so successful. “Amazon’s ability to fulfill more quickly and effectively than competitors has been a key differentiator back to the earliest days,” he noted.
Thanksgiving is actually not the company’s best season, because many shoppers like to search for deals and doorbusters in brick-and-mortar stores. Around that time, Amazon’s online sales can fall 20 percent.
Griffin Carlborg, a researcher at the digital intelligence firm Gartner L2, said those numbers show how much people trust the eCommerce giant. “Amazon has just built up its reputation around rapid fulfillment incredibly well,” he said. “Customers really trust Amazon’s fulfillment offerings.”
For Amazon, it’s always been about speed. The company invested $60 million in a same-day delivery startup called Kozmo, and even though that failed, the idea reportedly inspired Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chief executive.
Cem Sibay, a VP at Amazon who runs Prime, said, “We keep working to add faster and even more convenient delivery options.”
Amazon now has about 110 fulfillment centers in North America, as well as about 250,000 warehouse workers and many of its own planes.
Other companies have taken notice and tried to clone the idea – especially two-day shipping. Many are leveraging the fact that they have actual stores where customers can come pick up orders, a practice that is especially popular during the Christmas season.
