4.25/5 (4)

The concept of self-driving cars isn’t anything new. But a less talked about concept, is the self-driving truck. This autonomous truck could potentially revolutionise the logistics sector. According to BBC, at this moment there are several companies working on the development of these self-driving trucks. With some of those companies already reporting remarkable progress. A prime example is the tech company TuSimple. CNBC reported that the company is already doing test drives with semi-trucks that are autonomous. It still has human supervision on board for the test drives, but by the end of 2024 the company hopes to have the first fully autonomous trucks on the road.

This futuristic development will be a game changer for logistic companies in terms of money savings and efficiency of transportation. They wouldn’t need to pay a driver for the hours they put in and the self-driving truck doesn’t need to take breaks so it can do the desired routes way quicker than a human controlled truck. But the downside of these trucks is that it would mean that lots of truck drivers would be deemed unnecessary and would thus lose their jobs. NPR estimates that just in the US alone there are about 400.000 people employed as long-haul truck drivers. The technology is not even close to being able to replace all of these truck drivers but it could lead to problems in the future. To conclude, the development of autonomous trucks is an exciting one but it should be noted that a large number of jobs would be at stake if the technology will be widely applied.

• https://venturebeat.com/2019/10/18/volvo-will-report-autonomous-truck-financials-from-2020/
• https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56332388
• https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/19/tusimple-self-driving-trucks-saved-10-hours-on-24-hour-run.html
• https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/05/25/999784202/is-there-really-a-truck-driver-shortage?t=1631872899963

5/5 (3)

Year after year the amount of spending on e-commerce exceeds the amount spent during the year before. Sometimes it seems like the end of the physical brick and mortar stores is near. The image above illustrates the recent trend in e-commerce sales which was published in 2019 by Statista. The forecast that was made was however heavily disrupted by the Covid-19 crisis. Stores had to close down and people were scared to go out to crowded stores. This accelerated the already existing trend of increasing e-commerce sales to a new level worldwide. These days anything can be ordered online, from groceries to shoes, it’ll be delivered to your front door at the push of a button. But does this mean that the end is near for the brick and mortar stores?

Simply put, no. While it’s true that the amount of e-commerce sales is quickly increasing, according to Ripen in the United States 92% of the total retail sales still take place in physical stores. So the surging rise of e-commerce still only accounts for 8% of the total retail market in the United States. It’s true that online stores offer the customer a very easy and comfortable way of buying products that physical stores can’t match. But physical stores offer the customer other aspects of shopping that their online counterparts are not able to fully match. Some examples of these are:

• Getting the item immediately: When an item is bought in a physical store the consumer pays for it and then immediately gets to take the product home and use it. Whereas with online orders it can take up to a few days before the item is delivered. This problem is currently being tackled by some big shopping sites by offering same day delivery options.
• Shipping costs: People don’t like to pay for the shipping of their products. In fact, according to Forbes shipping options are the number one reason for consumers to abandon their online cart before ordering. Some companies are countering this by offering free shipping on their orders but this strategy is terrible for their profitability.
• Feeling the product in person: Customers like to see and experience the product in person. They want to touch it and see if the quality is adequate. This is something that online shops can never fully match. But one way of imitating this is sending samples to customers.

There are plenty of other reasons for consumers to prefer physical stores over online ones. With the upcoming of e-commerce many companies who originally only had physical stores opened up webshops to get a piece of this growing new way of making sales. But the opposite has also happened. Stores that originally were exclusively making online sales started opening up physical stores in order to profit from the advantages that brick and mortar stores have to offer. An example is Coolblue, which started off as an e-commerce business but now has over 15 physical stores.

To conclude, the rise of e-commerce shops is a fact and it’ll inevitably continue to take over a larger market share of the retail market. But there will always be advantages that physical stores offer that simply can not be matched by online shops. The end is not near for brick and mortar stores but the development of e-commerce is definitely something to keep an eye on.

• https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/online-shopping-statistics/#5-essential-online-shopping-statistics
• https://ripen.com/blog/ecommerce_survey
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/08/27/shipping-is-critical-to-keeping-online-shoppers-happy/?sh=6f34455178cb