Consider a Business Fleet To Compete with Amazon
In an effort to promote its fleet of vehicles for small businesses, the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi Alliance conducted a study of small- and medium-sized businesses to see if they’re ready to keep up with online retail giants like Amazon. The results were not exactly encouraging.
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Of the business leaders questioned, 18 percent of them say that the demand for deliveries is what challenges their businesses the most. Amazon Prime members can get many deliveries within two days and bricks-and-mortar business giants like Kroger and Walmart are delivering fresh groceries to customers, making many customers think that delivery is something all businesses should offer.
If a business doesn’t have a fleet, this could mean revenue lost to a local courier service, but even if that is an option it’s not always perfect. About 12 percent of businesses cite rapidly changing customer expectations for delivery as a main concern, and 11 percent consider urban traffic congestion a major threat. With a third party delivery partner, delivery times will probably slow because of the time needed to alert the courier and the time it takes them to arrive at the business.
Even with all of these concerns, 40 percent of businesses feel ready to take on e-commerce, with about a third worried about the future. Several businesses are hopeful that autonomous vehicles will make delivering goods easier, but we don’t know when those will be truly ready to hit the road.
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While we don’t know how many businesses the Alliance reached out to, the survey offers insight into how technology is really hitting small businesses where it hurts. The Nissan e-NV200 Zero Emission van is an electric delivery vehicle that can easily be outfitted for every business’s needs without using a drop of gas. Whether a business can afford just one or 100, it might be a good place to start when competing against the bigger fish.
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