The race to ultrafast delivery is on but there are big hurdles to speeding up the time to your doorstep

"Retailers are in a race to offer faster and faster delivery speeds. The world has come a long way since Jeff Bezos set the then-lofty goal of two-day delivery for Amazon Prime customers about two decades ago. Now delivery appears to be converging on the Holy Grail speed of 30 minutes or less, especially in overseas markets like India and China. In the US, Walmart, Amazon, and Target are competing to see who can get orders fulfilled the quickest."

"But these single-digit milestones are probably not going to become the norm anytime soon, supply chain consultant Ralph Asher told Business Insider. As it turns out, some very real physical and financial limits start to come into play at ultrafast speeds. "You need more and more expensive equipment to do it, you need more and more inventory, you need more and more real estate, you need more and more drivers willing to drop everything at a moment's notice to do delivery," he said."

"Asher, who previously handled supply chain strategy for Target, developed a model to illustrate the mapping challenge of shifting from next-day delivery to 30-minute delivery. In his example, Asher found that a company would need at least four fulfillment stations in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area to promise 30-minute delivery to 95% of the population. After speaking with Business Insider, Asher re-ran the model with a 15-minute delivery goal and found that a company would need 31 fulfillment stations."

Retailers are accelerating delivery speeds, moving from two-day fulfillment toward 30-minute or faster options in many markets. Overseas markets often achieve sub-30-minute delivery, and major U.S. retailers are competing to shorten fulfillment time. Ultrafast fulfillment imposes rising costs and resource demands, including more expensive equipment, larger inventories, additional real estate, and highly available drivers. Modeling for the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area indicates at least four fulfillment stations are required to reach 30-minute delivery for 95% of residents, while achieving 15-minute delivery would require about 31 stations. Physical and financial constraints create a practical upper limit without substantial facility expansion.

Read at Business Insider